Latest / Reformed Thinking / Temptation and Deliverance (Genesis 39:12) | Jonathan Edwards

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Temptation and Deliverance (Genesis 39:12) | Jonathan Edwards · Reformed Thinking

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Welcome to Reform Thinking. I'm your host and I am so glad
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you decided to plug in and join us for another deep dive where
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we we take a look at some of these old texts and see what
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they have to say to us. Today.
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I'm joined, as always, by my cohost.
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It's good to be back in the studio.
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It is good to be here and we have quite a text in front of us
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today. This one is going to make a lot
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of us, I think, a little uncomfortable.
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I think you're right, but it's that good kind of discomfort,
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you know, like a surgeon setting a bone.
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That's a great way to put it. Painful, but it leads to health.
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Yeah, exactly. So for those of you who might be
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new, we're two Protestant Christians.
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We tend to look at the world and theology through the lens of the
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Westminster Confession standards, but today we're
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really zeroing in on one specific sermon from a guy who
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pretty much needs no introduction in our circles,
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Jonathan Edwards. The theologian of the heart
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himself. We are looking at a sermon that
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Edwards preached all the way back in 1738.
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It's titled Temptation and Deliverance.
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You sometimes see it listed with a longer title, right?
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Something about Joseph. Yeah, you might see it
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catalogued as Joseph's great temptation and glorious
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deliverance. Same sermon.
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So we're heading back to Northampton, MA in the 1730s,
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but the text he's preaching on is obviously much, much older.
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He's camped out in Genesis 39, verse 12, the I mean the
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incredibly famous story of Joseph and Potiphar's house.
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That's right. And look, most people who grew
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up in church, they know this story.
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Joseph the coat, sold into slavery by his brothers, he
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resists Potiphar's wife, gets thrown in jail, interprets some
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dreams and, you know, eventually saves Egypt.
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It's a fantastic narrative. Real page Turner.
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It is. But Edwards isn't just retelling
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the story for entertainment. He's a theologian.
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He is mining the story for a very specific and very sharp
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doctrine. And that doctrine is all about
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how we handle sin, but not just not just the act of sinning.
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It's bigger than that. It's about the occasion of sin
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that's the key. The core theme Edwards is
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hammering home is that it is a Christian duty not just to avoid
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the sinful act, the crime itself, but to avoid the
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situations, the environments, the very proximity that leads to
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sin. He argues that we have a moral
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duty to stay away from the edge of the Cliff.
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Exactly, which is a distinction that I think, well, I think
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we've largely lost it today. We tend to think, well, as long
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as I didn't actually do the thing, as long as I didn't cross
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the line, I'm OK. Right.
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I went to the party, but I didn't get drunk or I looked at
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the profile, but I didn't send the message.
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We live on the line. And Edwards is saying if you're
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standing on the line, you have already failed.
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He's coming at this from 2 huge theological realities.
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The doctrine of sanctification are called to be holy and the
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reality of total depravity. Meaning he has a very high view
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of God's holiness. A massively high view and at the
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same time a very, very realistic view of the correction of the
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human heart. He knows that because our hearts
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are like like dry Tinder, we just cannot afford to play with
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sparks. So that's our mission for this
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deep dive. We're going to breakdown Edwards
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arguments for why we have to flee temptation like Joseph did.
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And then, and this is the really practical part, we're going to
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get into his diagnostic tools for identifying what those
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dangerous situations actually are.
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Because sometimes we don't even know we're in danger.
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Not until it's way too late. And those tools, they are just
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cold. They are so helpful for anyone
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who is genuinely trying to live a holy life in a culture that I
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mean, it just sells temptation on every street corner, on every
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screen. OK, so let's set the scene.
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Edwards opens his by 5th house. What's the situation here?
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This isn't just some guy clocking in for a job.
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No, not at all. The stakes are just incredibly
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high. Edwards takes a moment to remind
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his congregation of Joseph's whole story up to this point.
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Remember, he was the favorite son, then betrayed, sold as a
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slave by his own flesh and blood.
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He has experienced profound trauma, rejection, a complete
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loss of status. Everything was taken from him.
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Everything. And he ends up in Egypt, a
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foreign land, in the House of Potiphar, who is the captain of
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Pharaoh's guard. This is a powerful man.
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But Joseph isn't just, you know, scrubbing floors in the
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background. He rises, he distinguishes
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himself. He becomes the overseer of the
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entire household. The text is really clear about
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that. It says Potiphar entrusted
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everything he had to Joseph. It even says he knew not ought
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he had save the bread, which he did eat.
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Joseph is basically running the entire estate.
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He's the CEO. And here is where Edwards makes
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his first I think, brilliant and counter intuitive observation.
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We usually think of Joseph's trials being so difficult
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because he was a slave, because he was lonely, because he was
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far from home. All true, but Edwards points out
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that the real spiritual danger was his prosperity.
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Wait, OK, you have to explain that.
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That seems backward. Usually we think adversity is
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the big test, right? If I'm poor and desperate, I
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might be tempted to steal. If I'm lonely, I might be
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tempted to compromise for companionship, Edwards says.
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Success was the threat. He does think about it from a
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human nature perspective. Edwards argues that unexpected
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prosperity has a tendency to lift persons up.
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It puffs them up. When you're suddenly successful,
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when you get the promotion, when things are finally going your
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way after a long struggle, what happens?
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Your guard goes down. You feel capable, you feel
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strong, you start thinking you're kind of a big deal.
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Exactly. You start to trust yourself.
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Edward suggests that this sudden rise to power made Joseph more
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vulnerable to this specific temptation than if he had
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remained in the depths of affliction.
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Affliction keeps you on your knees.
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Prosperity can make you forget you need them.
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That's wow. That is really counterintuitive.
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We pray for success, for blessings, but that success
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might be the very thing that works like an anesthetic on our
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conscience. It just puts it to sleep.
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It creates this false sense of security.
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I handled the estate accounts perfectly.
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Surely I can handle this little flirtation.
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It breeds self-confidence, which, as we're going to see
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over and over, Edwards believes is the absolute enemy of
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holiness. And he also makes a point about
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Joseph Sage. Yes, he was young.
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Edwards calls youth a season of life where the passions are
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naturally strong and reason is often while not as developed.
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So you put it all together, you have a young man full of vigor
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and natural passions who has just been given a massive amount
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of power and autonomy. It's a powder keg.
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And then you introduce the match, the temptation itself.
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And this wasn't some random passing thing.
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Oh no, the tempter was his mistress Potiphar's wife.
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We have to stop and think about the power dynamic here.
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She had absolute authority over him.
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She wasn't a peer, she wasn't a Co worker.
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She was the master's wife. That puts Joseph in just a
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terrible no win situation. If he says no, he's not just
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rejecting a woman's advances, he's rejecting his boss, his
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owner. Really.
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He's rejecting a woman who has the power to utterly destroy him
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with a single word. Edwards notes that she plainly
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manifested her disposition. This wasn't a subtle hint or a
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flirtatious glance. It was a direct, explicit
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solicitation. Lie with me.
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And because of her position, there's an implicit threat baked
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into that. A massive 1.
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She had the power to make his life a living hell.
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He risked incurring her wrath. Which for a slave, even a
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high-ranking one like Joseph, is a terrifying, potentially fatal
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prospect. And it wasn't a one time thing
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either. The text says she spoke to him
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day by day. It was a siege, a relentless
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campaign. Imagine the psychological
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pressure every single day you go to work and the person with the
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power to fire you, to jail you, to have you killed, is demanding
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you compromise your most fundamental morals.
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It's designed to wear you down. It's water torture.
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It is, and Edwards points this out to show that Joseph wasn't
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just resisting a single sudden moment of passion.
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He was resisting A sustained strategic campaign of harassment
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and temptation. Which all leads up to the climax
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in verse 11. The trap finally springs.
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She catches him when the house is empty.
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Edwards really emphasizes the element of secrecy here.
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The opportunity was, from a worldly perspective, perfect.
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No one would know. There were no other servants
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around, no witnesses. If Joseph had a single pragmatic
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bone in his body, he could have so easily rationalized it.
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Oh absolutely. She controls my fate if I keep
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her happy. I stay in power, I keep my job.
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I can continue to do good here. No one gets hurt.
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It's just politics. You can write the whole script
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and that is the ultimate test, isn't it?
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It's The Who are you when the lights are off moment.
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So how does Joseph respond? I mean, we all know the Sunday
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school answer is he ran, but Edwards, he just breaks down the
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internal logic of that response so brilliantly.
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And he starts with what Joseph didn't do, which I think is just
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as important. It is, he says.
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Joseph did not hesitate. He didn't deliberate.
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He didn't stand there and weigh the pros and cons.
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He didn't say, well, let's sit down and have a reasonable
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discussion about this. He refused compliance in any
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degree. That is so rare.
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Usually we like to negotiate with our temptations.
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Don't we think, well, I won't do the main act, but I can stay in
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the room. I can keep the conversation
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going. I can handle.
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It Joseph's policy was total avoidance, the text says.
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He refused to even be with her. He avoided the location.
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He stayed out of the room. But when he was cornered, his
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reasoning was twofold. First, there's the horizontal
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loyalty to his master. He lists all the things Potiphar
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has entrusted to him. It's a matter of integrity.
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But that's not the main thing. It's not the anchor.
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The theological anchor drops when Joseph asks that question.
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How then can I do this great wickedness and sin against God?
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It wasn't just about betraying Potiphar.
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It wasn't about ruining his own reputation.
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It was about God. It was primarily fundamentally
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about God. For Joseph, sin was not first a
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social mistake, but a vertical offense.
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And so when the physical confrontation happens, when she
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actually grabs his garment, Joseph makes a split second,
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life altering decision. He leaves the garment in her
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hand, and he flees. Edwards uses some very, very
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specific language to describe that flight.
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He does. He says Joseph fled as he would
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have done from one that was going to assassinate him.
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That image is just. It's so crucial, it changes
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everything. It does.
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I mean, think about it. If you were walking down a dark
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alley and someone jumped out and pulled a knife on you, what
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would you do? You wouldn't try to reason with
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them. You wouldn't worry about looking
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dignified. You wouldn't worry about
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dropping your wallet or your coat.
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You would run, you would scream, You would do anything to save
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your life. Because the threat is immediate
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and it is fatal. And Edwards is saying that is
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exactly how Joseph viewed this sexual sin.
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He saw it as an assassin. He viewed the temptation not as
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a pleasure to be managed, but as a physical threat to his
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spiritual life. He would rather lose his
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garment, his property, his dignity, his evidence of
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innocence, then lose his chastity.
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That just sets the whole stage. That's the biblical precedent.
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Joseph ran away from the occasion of sin, not just the
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act. So now Edwards pivots.
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He moves from the story to the argument.
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He lays out this airtight theological case for why we have
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to have this same policy of avoidance, and his first
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argument is a heavy 1. He talks about the infinite evil
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of sin. This is classic Edwards, and
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it's a concept that I think modern listeners, we really
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struggle to get our heads around.
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He argues that any sin, every sin, is an infinite evil.
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OK, let's slow down here because that's a massive claim.
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I'm a finite person. I have a finite lifespan.
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My actions have finite consequences in this world, how
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can I commit an infinite crime? It just seems I don't know
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mathematically impossible. It does, until you understand
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how Edwards is calculating the weight.
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The heinous of a crime. He argues that the evil of a
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crime is determined not by the status of the person committing
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it, but by the dignity and excellence of the person against
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whom it is committed. OK, give me an example to make
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that concrete. All right.
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If I step on an Ant, nobody cares.
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The Ant has very little dignity or worth in the grand scheme of
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things. It's nothing.
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If I slap my neighbor, that's assault.
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That's a crime. I might get fined, maybe spend a
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night in jail. But if I walk up to the King of
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England or, you know, in our context, the president and I
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slap him across the face on national television.
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That's not just assault. That's a major federal crime.
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It's an attack on the office, on the nation.
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It's treason. The physical act is identical, a
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slap. But the gravity and the
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punishment change exponentially because of the infinite dignity
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of the one being slapped. So Edwards's logic follows
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because God is a being of infinite glory, infinite
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majesty, infinite excellence, and infinite authority.
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Any rebellion against him, no matter how small it seems to us,
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is an insult of infinite proportion.
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It's cosmic treason. That's the term.
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It's an act of infinite evil. And because the evil of sin is
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infinite, Edwards argues, our care to avoid it must be
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maximal. You can never be too careful
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when dealing with an infinite danger.
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He uses an analogy about protecting a child here.
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Doesn't he sort of bring it down to earth for us?
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He does. It's a great 1.
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He asks how can you possibly claim that you are using the
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utmost caution to protect your child's life if you let that
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child play on the edge of 1000 foot Cliff or if you let them
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wander into a forest that you know is full of bears?
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You can't. It's a contradiction.
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If you say, oh, I'm being so careful, but you leave the child
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to play in the lion's den at the zoo, you're not just negligent,
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you're a liar. And Edwards applies that
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directly to our souls. That hits hard.
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If we say we hate sin, we value our souls, but we keep playing
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on the edge of the Cliff. If we keep the apps on our phone
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that we know are trouble. If we go to the bar just to hang
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out with friends, knowing our weakness, we aren't actually
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being careful, we are being negligent parents to our own
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souls. Precisely.
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Which leads directly into a second argument, which is all
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about the hatred of sin. Edwards says if we truly, truly
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understood the nature of what sin is, we would dread it more
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than we dread death, more than we dread the devil himself.
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He uses this terrifying phrase. He says every sin naturally
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carries hell in it. Naturally carries hell in it.
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That is just chilling. What does he mean by that?
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He means that the seed, the DNA of eternal separation from a
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holy God, is present in every single act of rebellion.
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Hell isn't just a destination you arrive at after you die.
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It's a state of being that begins with rebellion against
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God. And right here, Edwards gives
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this incredibly stern warning that abusing the doctrine of
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free grace. He knows his audience.
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He knows that people like us are sitting there thinking, OK, this
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is heavy, but God is merciful. If I trip up, there's grace.
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Jesus already paid for it on the cross.
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It's the it's easier to ask for forgiveness than to ask for
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permission mindset. We presume upon grace.
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We bank on the safety net. And Edwards just slams the door
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on that way of thinking. He does.
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He says that just because God might pardon a sin out of his
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infinite mercy doesn't give us any reason to boldly expose
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ourselves to it. He calls that a most ungrateful
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and vile abuse of mercy. I mean, think about the logic.
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It's like saying because this doctor is the best surgeon in
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the world at setting broken bones, I'm going to go throw
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myself off the roof of A2 story building.
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It's absolute insanity. It turns God's kindness into a
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license for spiritual stupidity. It's madness.
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It shows you don't actually love the Doctor, you just want to use
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them to clean up your own self-inflicted mess.
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It's a gross perversion of grace.
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That flows right into his third argument, which is a brilliant
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appeal to our own logic of self-interest.
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He calls it temporal prudence. He basically just holds up a
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mirror and says look at how careful you are with your money
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and your physical body. Why on earth aren't you at least
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that careful with your immortal soul?
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He loves these intensely practical comparisons.
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He uses the rotten ice analogy. Yeah, let's paint that picture
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for a second. It's late winter, early spring.
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The lake is thawing out. The ice is all Gray and cracking
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and you can hear it groaning. Edwards says reasonable men do
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not walk on rotten ice over deep, freezing water just
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because they might not fall in. You don't stand at the edge and
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say, well, you know, I have pretty good balance and there's
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maybe a 10 percent chance this ice will hold my weight.
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No, you avoid the risk entirely because you value your life.
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You stay on the shore. Or the financial analogy he
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uses. He says men don't just take
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their cash and throw it into the ocean, and they don't knowingly
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do business with known con artists.
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Right, if you know a man is a navid sheet of fraud, you don't
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hand him your life savings and just hope for the best.
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We are incredibly risk averse when it comes to our wallets and
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our four O 1 KS. We read the fine print.
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We lock our doors at night, but with our souls, our eternal
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interest, we are just careless. We leave the doors wide open.
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And Edward says this reveals our true values.
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It does, he says. It proves that we secretly
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despise God's glory and our own eternal good.
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If we are so careful with trifles like money, but so
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reckless with our souls, our priorities are completely,
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damnably inverted. Oof, I think we all feel the
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sting of that one. We'll spend hours researching a
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new car purchase to make sure we don't get a lemon, but we'll
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walk into a spiritual minefield without a second thought.
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His fourth argument is about friendship and Providence.
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This one feels a little more relational, a little softer.
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It is. He uses the dear friend analogy.
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He says, look, if you have a best friend, someone you truly
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love and respect, you avoid things that might even remotely
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hurt them or damage the reputation.
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You don't just avoid punching them in the face, you avoid
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situations that make them look bad or cause them grief, he
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says. We ought to treat God at least
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as well as we treat our dear friends.
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And the Providence side of that same argument.
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This is a beautiful piece of logic about reciprocity, he
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says. We pray constantly for God to be
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a wall of fire around us. We asked him to keep physical
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evil far away from us. We don't want cancer.
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We don't want a car accident. We don't want a house fire.
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We pray for God to keep calamity far from our dwelling.
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OK, so there's a contradiction coming.
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A glaring 1 Edwards argues there is a profound logical and
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spiritual contradiction if we are begging God to keep physical
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evil far away from us, while we are perfectly happy to welcome
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moral evil sin right into our hearts and homes close to God's
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presence. We want him to do all the heavy
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lifting of protection, but we won't do the basic work of
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obedience. We want His hedge of protection
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around us, but we keep tearing down our own hedge of holiness.
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That is it, exactly. Which brings us to the fifth
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argument, which is maybe the most pointed of all the
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hypocrisy of prayer. This is the one that really
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shuts the mouths of the outwardly religious people.
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Lead us not into temptation. It's right there in the Lord's
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Prayer. We say it every Sunday.
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Many of us say it every day. Edward says it is an absolute
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self contradiction to pray. Lead us not into temptation with
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your mouth in the morning and then to voluntarily with your
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feet run straight into temptation in the evening.
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Wow. By running into it, you are
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choosing the very thing you just ask God to prevent.
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You are, in effect, mocking your own prayer.
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You're treating God like a fool. It's like praying for sobriety
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while you're walking through the doors of a bar.
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You are asking God to stop you from doing the very thing that
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your body is actively doing. Edwards would say that kind of
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prayer is an abomination to God. You cannot sincerely ask God to
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deliver you from a fire that you were intentionally pouring
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gasoline on. And he rounds out this whole
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section with a flurry of biblical precedents and
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commands. He cites the Apostle Paul.
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If we're supposed to avoid lawful things like eating
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certain meat or drinking wine, if they might make a weaker
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brother stumble, then how much more must we avoid things that
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make us stumble? And then he brings up the big
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one, the right eye command from the sermon on the mound.
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Look it out. That is the ultimate command of
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radical avoidance. Jesus says if your right eye,
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your precious, valuable, useful right eye, causes you to sin,
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gouge it out and throw it away. Now think about the value of an
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eye. It's part of you.
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It's how you see the world. Jesus is saying we must be
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willing to part with things that are incredibly dear to us,
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things that might even be good or useful in other contexts if
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they are leading us into sin. Because the alternative is what?
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The alternative, Edwards reminds us, is going with two eyes into
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the fire of hell. The stakes are that high.
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And he even brings up Deuteronomy 13, which is that
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incredibly harsh command to put to death even a brother or a son
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or a wife if they try to entice you into idolatry.
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That's the Old Testament severity, and he's not arguing
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for us to literally do that, of course.
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He's using it to show the principle.
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God demands that we radically, violently cut off sources of
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temptation from our lives. No relationship, no matter how
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close or cherished, is worth your soul.
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You cut it off. You don't entertain it, You
20:27
don't manage it. You cut it off.
20:29
So the theological case is just, it's airtight, it's
20:33
overwhelming. We have to stay away from the
20:34
edge. But this leads to a very, very
20:37
practical problem which Edwards anticipates.
20:40
He poses the question himself, how shall we know what things do
20:43
lead and exposed to sin? Because let's be honest, since
20:46
we have corrupt hearts, everything can be a temptation.
20:48
It's a really valid objection. I can be tempted to pride while
20:52
I'm preaching a sermon on humility.
20:54
I can be tempted to gluttony at a church potluck.
20:57
If the heart is the fundamental problem, isn't the whole world
21:01
just one big trap? Right.
21:03
And Edward says yes, in one sense the heart is the problem.
21:06
But that doesn't mean we can't distinguish specific high risk
21:09
dangers from lower risk situations.
21:12
He doesn't just leave us in the abstract, he gives us a set of
21:14
what he calls diagnostic tools. 7 specific rules for
21:20
discernment. OK, let's go through these one
21:21
by one, because this is the tool kit right here.
21:24
This is the practical take away rule #1 proximity to personal
21:27
weakness. He says we have to start by
21:29
honestly identifying the specific sins that our
21:32
particular constitutions, our histories are lusts, incline us
21:35
toward. And here he brings back that
21:37
roof battlement illustration from Deuteronomy 22.8.
21:41
I love this image. Can you explain the context for
21:43
listeners who might not be up on their ancient Israelite building
21:46
codes? Sure.
21:47
So in ancient Israel, many houses had flat roofs.
21:50
They're usable space. People would go up there to cool
21:53
off, to talk to dry laundry. It was like a patio.
21:56
And because it was a high place, God commanded in the law that
22:00
you must build a fence, a parapet, or a battlement around
22:04
the edge so that people don't accidentally fall off.
22:07
And if you didn't build that fence and someone fell to their
22:09
death? You were considered guilty of
22:11
their blood. It was your responsibility.
22:12
So Edwards takes this and applies it spiritually.
22:15
He says our corrupt nature is like a roof that is steep and
22:20
slippery. Exactly.
22:21
And to stand near the edge of a steep, slippery roof without a
22:24
fence is just madness. Pure folly.
22:28
So the application is that we need to build our own spiritual
22:30
battlements between US and our specific personal weaknesses.
22:35
Right, and this is key. Everyone's roof is slippery in
22:38
different places. For one person, the steep
22:40
slippery part is alcohol. For another it's the liquor
22:43
aisle in the grocery store. For another, it might be a
22:46
particular Co worker. For someone else it's anger.
22:48
And the steep places talk radio or a certain part of social
22:52
media. Or lust and the steep plays is a
22:55
particular streaming service or certain on your phone.
22:58
You have to identify your specific danger zone, and you
23:01
don't just try to walk carefully when you get near the edge.
23:03
You build a wall, you install blockers, you change your route
23:07
home from work, you build a battlement so you can't even get
23:10
to the edge in the first place. OK, that's powerful rule #2 is
23:14
the imagination test. This is so crucial, especially
23:17
for us living in such a visual image saturated culture.
23:21
Edward says. Anything that tends to feed the
23:23
imagination of lust must be avoided.
23:25
He quotes James 1.15. Lust is conceived in the
23:29
imagination, and then when it is fully grown, it brings forth the
23:32
act of sin. So the sin begins long before
23:35
the action. It begins with the movie playing
23:37
in your head. That's where the conception
23:39
happens. So if a book, a show, a song, a
23:42
conversation starts that movie playing, Edward says.
23:45
That's the danger zone, he says. The thought of foolishness is
23:48
sin. If something tends to raise up
23:50
images of the lust object in your mind, it's feeding the
23:53
beast. It's like tossing kindling on a
23:55
fire. The biology of desire confirms
23:57
us now. Right thoughts trigger chemical
24:00
reactions in the brain, which then trigger cravings for
24:03
actions. Absolutely.
24:04
Edwards understood the psychology of it 200 years
24:07
before modern science did. He says we must learn to hate
24:10
even the garment spotted with the flesh.
24:13
If it sparks the wrong kind of imagination, it's a fire hazard.
24:16
Avoid it. Rule #3 involves collective
24:19
experience, or what he calls observation.
24:22
This is basically the scientific method applied to morality, he
24:26
says. How do we know things in the
24:28
natural world? We observe cause and effect.
24:31
We know that the sun shining on a field tends to make plants
24:34
grow. We know that a rattlesnake bite
24:37
tends to cause illness and death.
24:39
How we've observed it over and over, he says.
24:41
Apply the same logic to spiritual things.
24:43
Look at the world, look at history.
24:44
What do you see? He brings up some really
24:46
specific examples from his own time, Taverns and gaming.
24:49
He is very, very, very hard on these two things, he says.
24:53
Just by simple observation, it is plain that Taverns are hubs
24:57
of profaneness, drunkenness and contention, He says.
25:00
Gaming, which for him meant playing cards for money, is
25:03
almost always attended with sin and wickedness.
25:06
Now people today might hear that and say, whoa, what's wrong with
25:09
playing a game of poker with friends?
25:11
And Edwards would say, look at the fruit.
25:13
He's not saying a deck of cards is inherently demotic.
25:16
He's making an observation about the tendency in his day.
25:19
Where were these card games happening?
25:21
They were happening Taverns, and they were almost always
25:24
accompanied by heavy drinking, by gambling, by arguments, by
25:28
wasted time. His argument is this.
25:31
If the fruit of the practice, historically and collectively,
25:34
is rotten, than the tree itself has a bad tendency.
25:38
So the modern application would be something like, look at where
25:41
a certain app or a certain social venue leads 90% of the
25:44
people who engage with it. If 90% of the people who go
25:46
there or use that end up compromising their morals, don't
25:50
be so arrogant as to assume you're going to be in the 10%.
25:52
Exactly. Don't presume you're the
25:54
exception to the rule. Respect the data of human
25:57
experience. All right, rule #4 is personal
26:00
experience. This one feels like the most
26:02
direct personal gut check for a believer.
26:05
It is this is a self examination rule and he gives us this
26:08
incredibly sharp tool for it. He calls it essentially the
26:13
prayer test. He asked this question.
26:15
Does a specific activity indispose you to the duty of
26:19
secret prayer? Wow, that is such a piercing
26:22
question. It just cuts through everything.
26:24
It cuts through all the endless debates about Christian liberty
26:27
and Gray areas. Just ask yourself that honest
26:30
question. Does this activity make my mind
26:32
light and vain? Does it make me feel backward
26:35
and awkward when it comes to religious meditation?
26:38
If you come home from a certain movie or a certain party, or
26:41
after scrolling on your phone for two hours, and you find that
26:44
the idea of opening your Bible feels repulsive or boring or
26:47
just impossible. Edward says that activity,
26:50
whatever it is, has a sinful tendency for you.
26:53
It is your personal occasion of sin.
26:54
Even if it's not an explicit sin listed in the Bible, Like thou
26:58
shalt not watch that kind of movie.
26:59
Yes, that's the power of the tool.
27:02
If it kills your spiritual appetite, it is poison to your
27:05
soul. If it chokes out your prayer
27:07
life, it is an enemy to Your Holiness.
27:10
You have to treat it as such. Then we have rules 5 and 6,
27:13
which are fascinating because they are so deeply contextual to
27:17
his experience in the Great Awakening.
27:18
He calls them the revival test. This is Edwards, the revivalist
27:22
pastor, speaking from his own recent experience.
27:25
His argument is simple. He asks when the Spirit of God
27:28
was poured out in great power here in Northampton during the
27:31
height of the awakening, what customs and practices vanished?
27:35
The idea being that the Holy Spirit only kills what is bad.
27:38
He only weeds the garden. Right.
27:40
The Holy Spirit doesn't destroy good healthy God glorifying
27:44
human flourishing. So if the Holy Spirit comes in
27:46
power and overnight everyone in town suddenly stops doing custom
27:49
acts, then custom X was likely an enemy of the Spirit's work.
27:53
And the flip side of that is his rule number six, the decay test.
27:56
Exactly when the revival fades, when religion decays, what
28:00
practices start to creep back in?
28:02
If it hides when the lights are on and only comes out when the
28:05
lights go dim. Then it is a work of darkness.
28:08
It's a very simple but very effective spiritual barometer.
28:12
He's telling his people, Think back to a year ago when you felt
28:15
closest to God. What did you naturally stop
28:17
doing, and what have you started doing again now that the fire
28:20
has cooled? That's your answer.
28:22
Finally, rule #7 the publicity test.
28:26
He explains this as the open practice rule.
28:28
He says to ask yourself this question, what would happen if
28:32
everyone in society did this thing openly and universally?
28:36
If a custom cannot be practiced openly by everyone without
28:39
causing a woeful state of things, then it has an I'll
28:42
tendency. Secrecy is a red flag.
28:44
It is. If you have to hide it, or if a
28:47
society where everyone did it would be chaotic or immoral or
28:50
dysfunctional, then you probably shouldn't be doing it in secret.
28:53
Those are just incredibly powerful, practical tools.
28:56
I think we could spend a whole deep dive just applying those 7
28:58
rules to modern life. But Edwards doesn't leave it in
29:01
the abstract. He takes these tools and he
29:04
applies them with surgical precision to a very specific
29:07
issue for the youth of his day. And this brings us to what we
29:10
could call the frolicking controversy.
29:12
Yes, and we have to do a little historical work here to
29:15
understand the social context of 18th century New England.
29:19
Edwards isn't just an abstract theologian in an ivory tower.
29:23
He's a pastor dealing with real people, real temptations.
29:27
He addresses the young people in his church directly regarding
29:30
what they called company keeping, and he warns them
29:33
against the sin of lasciviousness.
29:36
Which he defines pretty broadly, right?
29:37
It's not just the act of adultery or fornication.
29:40
Right. It's not just the gross act as
29:42
he calls it. It's anything that leads toward
29:44
it. Filthy talking, inappropriate
29:46
jesting, and certain kinds of physical contact.
29:50
And he targets 2 specific customs that were apparently a
29:52
big problem in Northampton at the time.
29:55
The first one is a practice that historians often call bundling,
29:58
though Edwards describes it a little more plainly as young
30:01
people of different sexes reclining together.
30:04
OK, we had to pause and explain this because I guarantee you
30:06
modern listeners are going to be completely confused.
30:07
What on earth is bundling? It sounds totally bizarre to us,
30:11
I know, but you have to picture colonial New England.
30:15
Winters were brutally cold, firewood was a ton of work to
30:18
get, candles were expensive. Houses were often small one or
30:22
two room affairs, so they're developed this custom where a
30:27
courting couple or sometimes just young people hanging out
30:30
would lie down in a bed together, fully clothed, often
30:33
with a blanket over them, just to stay warm and talk in the
30:36
evening. You're telling me they'd
30:38
sometimes put a board between them?
30:39
Yes, a bundling board was sometimes placed down the middle
30:43
of the bed as a kind of partition.
30:45
And the parents, the parents allowed this.
30:47
They'd say, yeah, sure, go ahead and hop in bed with your
30:49
boyfriend. Just, you know, keep the board
30:50
there. It was viewed by many as a
30:52
practical, frugal custom, but Edwards was having absolutely
30:56
none of it. He thought it was spiritual
30:57
insanity. His verdict was clear.
31:00
Experience shows that this practice leads to uncleanness.
31:04
It is designed to stir up lust. It's an intentional violation of
31:07
rule #2 the imagination test. Completely.
31:10
His argument is theological. God abominates the impurities of
31:15
the heart. To intentionally put yourself in
31:17
a situation lying next to someone you're attracted to in
31:20
the dark, under a blanket and claim you're just talking is to
31:24
intentionally stir up lust in your heart.
31:27
You are choosing to enter temptation.
31:29
It violates the build a battlement rule.
31:31
You are literally lying down on the very edge of the cliffs and
31:34
hoping that gravity decides to take the night off.
31:37
And he uses this frightening analogy here, the serpent.
31:40
He says young people think they're safe.
31:41
They tell themselves, oh, we can handle it, we're strong, we
31:43
won't cross the line. But he says they are like little
31:46
birds that are being charmed by a snake.
31:48
They just stare at the temptation.
31:49
They draw closer and closer, thinking they can fly away at
31:52
any moment, until suddenly it's too late and they are devoured.
31:56
He's saying you think you're stronger than your own biology,
31:59
stronger than sin, but you are not.
32:01
You are not. The second issue he attacks is
32:04
what he calls frolicking. Now when I hear the word
32:07
frolicking, I think of, you know, lambs skipping in a
32:09
Meadow. It sounds so innocent.
32:11
But Edwards is not talking about skipping.
32:13
No, he means late night parties. Exactly.
32:17
Gatherings for mirth and jollity that go late into the night.
32:21
You should think of it as the 18th century equivalent of the
32:23
club or the college house party that goes until 3:00 in the
32:26
morning. So what's his problem with these
32:28
parties? Is he just an old killjoy who
32:30
hates fun? He has a few very specific
32:33
observable arguments. First, the argument from
32:36
experience. That's his rule #3 he says just
32:39
look around at the towns in this region.
32:41
The towns that have the most follicking also have the most
32:43
gross sins. He's specifically talking about
32:46
premarital sex and fornication and they have the most
32:49
irreligious world young people. It's the bad fruit argument
32:53
again. If the party consistently leads
32:56
to the pregnancy, then the party is part of the problem.
32:59
And he brings the revival argument in here, too.
33:01
He does, he points out to his congregation.
33:03
Remember, a couple years ago, during the height of the Great
33:06
Awakening, these parties stopped.
33:08
They completely vanished. The young people were too busy
33:11
meeting for prayer and singing hymns.
33:14
Now that the revival is fading, the parties are coming back with
33:17
a vengeance, and he calls the young people who have returned
33:20
to them changelings. Changelings.
33:22
That is not a compliment. It's a sharp insult.
33:25
He's scolding them. He's saying you claim to be
33:28
converted. You look like a child of God for
33:31
a while, but now you're going back to the world's vomit.
33:33
You look like you've been swapped out.
33:35
It makes their profession of faith look like a sham.
33:38
It's a bad witness. There's also a more structural
33:40
argument he makes about family order, and this connects to how
33:44
they view time and the rhythm of the household.
33:47
This is really important. For Edwards and the Puritans,
33:52
the family was the bedrock of society in the church.
33:55
He argues that these late night parties completely disrupt
33:58
family order and specifically family worship.
34:01
If you're out until 2:00 in the morning, you're not there for
34:03
evening family prayer. You're disrupting the entire
34:06
household when you come in. You're sleeping in the next day
34:08
and missing morning duties. He calls them works of darkness.
34:11
He does, and he's citing Romans 13 directly.
34:14
The Bible associates nighttime carousing and rioting with sin.
34:19
Honest, above board behaviors belong to the daylight, he says.
34:22
If you have to do it in the dead of night, it's probably because
34:24
it can't stand the light of day. It's a simple but powerful test.
34:28
Now, Edwards was a genius and he knew how people would argue back
34:32
against him. Teenagers have not changed that
34:34
much in 300 years. He actually anticipates their
34:37
objections and refutes them. The first one is a classic.
34:40
They quote Ecclesiastes at him. There is a time to dance.
34:44
You can just hear it, can't you? Lighten up pastor, The Bible
34:47
says I can dance. Edwards rebuttal is that Solomon
34:50
in Ecclesiastes was talking about appropriate times of
34:54
celebration or maybe even religious expressions of joy.
34:57
He was not giving a license for late night carnal mirth that is
35:00
specifically designed to stir up hormones and lead to
35:03
drunkenness. And he points out that the very
35:06
same Solomon in the same book called worldly laughter madness.
35:10
You can't just cherry pick verses to justify your works of
35:13
darkness. The second objection is 1.
35:15
We absolutely still hear today. It's the social awkwardness
35:18
defense. If we stop going to these
35:20
parties, we'll be weird. We won't know how to behave in
35:22
polite company. We'll be social outcasts.
35:25
The fear of being uncool. It's a powerful motivator.
35:29
Edward's rebuttal to this is just scathing.
35:31
He asks, essentially, are you seriously suggesting that the
35:34
Holy Spirit makes people barbarous?
35:35
He asks them, does holiness make you a clown?
35:38
Does following Christ make you rude and I'll mannered?
35:41
That is a fantastic line. He thinks the very suggestion is
35:45
blasphemous, as if the Spirit of God, who stopped these customs
35:48
during the revival, is an enemy of good breeding and social
35:52
grace. He says true holiness is not
35:55
awkward rudeness, but it is certainly not worldly
35:58
licentiousness either. He's challenging them to have a
36:01
higher, more dignified standard of social life than just doing
36:04
what everyone else does. Man, he really does pull no
36:07
punches. So we've covered the theology,
36:09
the diagnostic tools, and the very specific applications.
36:12
How does he land the plane? What's the conclusion of this
36:14
whole sermon? He brings it all together by
36:16
summarizing the core duty. It is not enough to just resist
36:20
sin when it arrives. We must proactively avoid the
36:23
edge of the precipice. And he focuses on what he sees
36:27
as the root of the whole problem, which is
36:28
self-confidence. Yeah, I can handle it.
36:30
Syndrome. That's it.
36:32
And he points directly to the Apostle Peter.
36:34
Peter was the most confident of all the disciples, though all
36:37
the others fall away. I will not.
36:39
I'm ready to go with you to prison and to death.
36:42
And yet, a few hours later, he's swearing and cursing, denying he
36:45
ever knew Jesus to a servant girl by a fire.
36:48
He argues that the most confident are actually the most
36:50
in danger. They are because their
36:53
confidence is in themselves, not in God.
36:56
True spiritual safety, Edwards argues, lies in a profound
37:00
distrust of our own hearts. It lies in sensing our desperate
37:04
need for God's restraining grace at every moment.
37:07
We need to feel our need for that restraining grace.
37:10
Exactly. You should think of restraining
37:12
grace like a leash. Edwards believes that by nature
37:16
we are all wild dogs prone to run straight into traffic.
37:20
We might think we're well behaved house pets, but that's
37:22
only because God is holding the leash.
37:25
If that leash of restraining grace were to snap for even a
37:27
second, our own hearts would destroy us.
37:30
We don't stay safe because we are good.
37:32
We stay safe because He is holding us back.
37:35
That's the theology, and if you think you're strong enough to
37:37
walk into the fire and not get burned, you're already on fire.
37:40
You just don't feel the flames yet.
37:42
And he closes with a very direct call to action.
37:45
He does for the youth. He says use your reason.
37:48
Think through these arguments, don't just follow the herd.
37:51
If you claim to be a convert of the recent revival, then your
37:54
life should not look like the works of darkness.
37:57
Let your life match your profession and for the parents,
38:00
the heads of families. He is very strict.
38:02
He says exercise government over your children.
38:04
Do not tolerate these sinful conventions in your own houses.
38:08
Be the parent, Lead your family. The urgency is just palpable in
38:12
his closing lines. The night is far spent.
38:15
The day is at hand. Let us therefore cast off the
38:18
works of darkness and put on the armor of light.
38:20
It's a call to battle. But the battle is not against
38:23
some foreign army. It's against the insidious,
38:25
creeping, seemingly innocent temptations in our own backyards
38:29
and on our own screens. OK, let's just unpack this for a
38:32
final minute before we wrap up that concept.
38:34
That image of the battlement. I really want to leave our
38:36
listener with that image to chew on.
38:38
It is the critical, practical image from this whole sermon.
38:41
Because we all have different roots, right?
38:43
My weaknesses are necessarily your weaknesses.
38:45
Not at all. For one person, the roof is
38:47
steep and slippery when it comes to alcohol.
38:50
For another, it's anger. For another, it's gossip.
38:53
For another, it's sexual lust or envy or greed.
38:57
The roof of our heart is steep and slippery in different places
39:00
for different people. So provocative thought we want
39:02
to leave you with is this where is the roof of your house?
39:06
Your life steep and slippery. Be honest with yourself.
39:09
Where do you keep sliding? And the more important question
39:12
is, have you built a battlement there?
39:15
Have you built a fence? Or are you still walking on the
39:17
very edge, telling yourself you just have excellent balance?
39:20
Because Jonathan Edwards would say that is not faith, that is
39:24
presumption. And gravity, Spiritual gravity,
39:27
is a relentless force. You will eventually fall if you
39:29
keep living on the edge. That is a sobering place to
39:32
leave it, but a very necessary one.
39:34
We want to thank you so much for joining us for this session of
39:37
Reformed thinking. It's been heavy, but I think
39:39
it's been really good. It's been a pleasure.
39:40
Thank you for having me. We really encourage you to go
39:43
find and read the sermon for yourself, Temptation and
39:46
Deliverance by Jonathan Edwards. There's nothing quite like
39:50
hearing it from the original source.
39:52
Until next time, keep thinking and keep building those
39:55
battlements. Take care.