Welcome back to another episode of Five Minutes in Church History.

For our Christmas episode of last year, just a few weeks ago, we looked at Edwards'

Sermon, The Excellencies of Christ. I mentioned then that his sermon was one of five sermons pulled together and published

in his second book, Discourses on various important subjects. Well, the first sermon that Edwards

put in that book was preached in November 1734 in Northampton called Justification by Faith

alone.

The second sermon is pressing into the kingdom of God.

It was preached in February of 1735.

The third sermon is Ruth's Resolution, preached again in 1735.

Let me just read some of the opening lines of that sermon to you. He's commenting on why we have this book in Scripture. And he says, one, because Christ was of Ruth's posterity. The Holy Ghost thought fit to take particular notice of that marriage of Boaz with Ruth, from which sprang the Savior of the world.

We observe that the Holy Spirit often takes notice of little things, minute occurrences

that do but remotely relate to Jesus Christ.

And the second reason?

Well, Edwards writes, Ruth was not originally of Israel, but was a Mobytus, an alien from the Commonwealth of Israel. But she forsook her own people and the idols of the Gentiles to worship the God of Israel and to join herself to that people. She seems to be a type of the Gentile Church, and also,

Edwards writes, of every sincere convert. So, the third sermon, Ruth's Resolution.

The fourth sermon, the justice of God and the damnation of sinners was preached in 1734,

and then the final and fifth sermon, the Excellencies of Christ.

Well, let's take a look at what's going on behind the scenes, not of the preaching of the

sermons, but of Edwards publishing this book and why he did it. Now, of course, these sermons were 1734 through

1735. This was a time of revival in Northampton, and Edwards is going to go on to write about this.

He'll write his A Faithful Narrative of the Surprising Work of God in 1736, and it'll get published in 1737. And so the chatter on

both sides of the Atlantic is about Jonathan Edwards and about this awakening and about these

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