Welcome back to another episode of Five Minutes in Church History. This is our last episode together in this year as this week marks the end of 2021 and the beginning of a new year.

Let's return to our old friend Jonathan Edwards in his text, The Resolutions.

He was 18, 19, 20 years old when he wrote this series of resolutions 70 in all.

He had already received his bachelor's degree from Yale and was in what would be a brief pastorate in New York City.

He had completed most of his master's degree studies by now and was writing his master's thesis.

His whole life was in front of him and here he was in 1722, 1723 laying what would be his foundation for that life.

He was forging one by one the resolutions that he would live by.

These resolutions spraying from his diary writing. Puritans kept diaries as a window into their soul.

They used these diaries to see where they were and their sanctification to check their progress in growing and holiness.

Edwards kept such a diary and in the midst of writing entries in it, he also turned to writing resolutions.

Let's take a look at some of them but we must first begin with the preface.

I would encourage you not only to begin with the preface but return to the preface and maybe as you make resolutions for you to return to Jonathan Edwards' preface as well.

In that preface he writes, being sensible that I am unable to do anything without God's help, I do humbly entreat him by his grace to enable me to keep these resolutions.

So far as they are agreeable to his will for Christ's sake.

I hope you see the two important things there. One is to live by grace. This is not moralism.

This is not having these resolutions that we sort of pick ourselves up by the bootstraps and live by.

This is God's grace enabling and empowering us to do these things, to be resolved.

And also notice he says, so far as they are agreeable to God's will, he's not assuming or presuming that what he wishes to do or resolves to do is in accord with God's will.

But he uses that as a check against himself. Well, as these resolutions proceed, he talks about all kinds of things.

He talks about scripture reading and resolution number 28 says resolved to study the scriptures so steadily, constantly and frequently that I may find and plainly perceive myself to grow in the knowledge of them.

Well, we all recognize our need to be committed to scripture, maybe recommitted to not just reading scripture, but studying it and growing in it.

And that was one of Edward's resolutions. He also talks about prayer. He says, resolved never to count that prayer nor to let that pass as a prayer or as a petition of a prayer, which is so made that I cannot hope that God will answer it.

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