The drift toward modernity had steadily eroded the seventeenth-century piety that the settlers had brought to all the early colonies and of which Puritanism was merely the most intense form. Religious observances were as strictly enforced in early Anglican Virginia as in New England, but the prosperity from tobacco soon converted Anglicanism into a bland and undemanding adornment of Virginia's genial country life. It was this kind of Anglicanism that became the established or official religion, supported by public taxation, in all the southern colonies and the three lower counties of New York.Anglican religious zeal was apparent only where the missionaries sent out by England's Society for the Propagation of the Gospel were at work and in New England where the Anglicans were an unpopular minority. Perhaps the most conspicuous example of the erosion of piety in the New World was the quick conversion of the Huguenots, those French counterparts of the Puritans, to the polite Anglicanism of the South Carolina planter class. Even the Pennsylvania Quakers, growing wealthy as a result of godly industry, frugality, and honesty, arrived at a point where the counting house seemed to overshadow the meeting house.

The decline of piety can be clearly traced among the theologically sophisticated and articulate Puritan Congregationalists of New England. By the end of the seventeenth century, the Reverend Cotton Mather, the last great defender of the orthodox order, was talking more about the necessity of right living in this world than about humanity's dependence on God for salvation in the next. The wealthy Boston merchants who founded the Brattle Street Church in 1699 did not require an account of conversion for full membership and chose a minister who preached a "free and catholic" version of Christianity emphasizing morality over piety. As the eighteenth century advanced, the most influential ministers in Boston, Charles Chauncy and Jonathan Mayhew, drifted into the Arminian" heresy, which diminished human dependence on God by regarding humans as capable of contributing to their salvation by right living.

But a people conditioned to piety did not adjust easily to the clear, rather bland atmosphere of the dawning Enlightenment. The embers of the old intense faith smoldered and in the 1730s and 1740s, were fanned into a bright blaze of religion enthusiasm that burned up and down the length and breath of the colonies. This American Great Awakening was only part of a general movement in the Protestant world including such parallel phenomena as an upsurge of Pietism in Germany and the Wesleyan revival in England. Beginning as an effort to reassert the earlier extreme piety against the rationalism and optimism of the Enlightenment, these awaking appealed frankly to the emotions and ended by unconsciously accommodating Christian to the modern spirit.

The American Great awakening began in different places, As early as the 1720's the Rev. Theodore J. Frelinghuysen touched off emotional revivals of religious feeling among the Germans in the New Jersey Raritan Valley. Nearby a group of ardent Presbyterian ministers began trying to stimulate intense religious feeling in place of the cold formalism of Calvinist orthodoxy. And at Northampton, Massachusetts in 1734, a gifted Congreationalist minister, Jonathan Edwards, stirred up a series of revivals by his powerful appeals to the religious emotions. All of these streams into a general revival movement throughout the colonies when England's great evangelist George Whitefield made the first of his American tours in 1739-1740.

The Great Awakening was emotional, popular, and anti-intellectual. The revivalist often were poorly educated, and their fervent exhortations sometimes touched off extravagant reactions-barking, having the "jerks", falling down-by their audiences. Revivalists maintained that a heart open to the divine spirit was more important than a highly trained intellect, and they stirred up much strife by accusing conservative, educated clergy of spiritual coldness. People responded with enthusiasm, and the more popular Protestant denominations -- the Baptist, the "New Light" Presbyterians, and later the Methodists-grew enormously as a refreshing religious pluralism swept across the colonies. In appealing for an emotional response to God's grace, the revival preachers often unconsciously suggested that salvation was available to all that the individual played an important part in the process.

The Methodist came to espouse these Armenian (and modern) heresies quite consciously.

Despite its anti-intellectual character, the Great Awakening prompted the establishment of three colonial colleges designed to train ministers for revivalist wings the sponsoring denominations: the Presbyterians' College of New jersey (Princeton 1746), the Baptists' College of Rhode Island (Brown, 1764), and the Dutch Reformed Rutgers (1766). Two other colonial colleges were founded under non-revivalist church auspices: Anglican King's College in New York (Columbia, 1754) and Congregatioist Dartmouth (1769), which began as an Indian school in New Hampshire.

For all its anti-intellectualism, this eighteenth-century resurgence of religious enthusiasm contributed mightily to the nation's educational development. The Awakening had as one of its major leaders the most gifted intellectual in colonial America, Jonathan Edwards. This brilliant Congregationalist minister burned with a personal sense of God's majesty and power that would have been exceptional even among the first-generation Puritans. But he had also had an understanding of the intellectual implications of Newtonian~Lockean thought that was equaled by few if any of his generation in either Europe or America. In a series of treatises, he impressively utilized the most advanced thought of his day to reconstruct the old Puritan vision of God. In a very real sense, this remarkable theologian was a transitional figure a bridge between two ages, who sought to recast and modernize Puritanism in the light of eighteenth-century rationalism.

Few in Edward's generation really understood what he was trying to do. His fellow revivalist who gladly adopted his advance principles of human psychology, which recognized the importance and legitimacy of emotion. But most Americans had moved too far into modernity to share, even his seasons of religious exaltation, his vision of the beauty and fitness of God's sovereignty and the sinner's helpless dependence on the miracle of divine grace.

Let 's take a few moments to define in greater depth what a revival really is. But there have been certain seasons called revivals-when God has "Poured His Spirit out on His People." These times-also called awakenings---occurred when the presence of God is experienced in powerful manifestations of the Holy Spirit. J. Edwin Orr

What is Revival?

The eternal human quest is to know and experience God.

Revival can be defined this way:

An evangelical revival is an extraordinary work of God in which Christians repent of their sins as they become intensely aware of his presence in their midst, and they manifest a positive response to God in renewed obedience to the known will of God, resulting in both deepening of their individual and corporate experience with God, and increased concern to win others to Christ.

This view of revival recognizes several distinctive, common to historic revivals, that we should keep in as we study them:

· An extraordinary work of God should be distinguished from the more ordinary work of God in the live of the believer.
· The realization of the unique presence of God during times of revival is consistently reported in the testimonies of the revived.
· Revivals naturally lead to a significant evangelistic outreach and harvest of souls in the community touched by the revived church.

There are basically nine types of revival:

· The repentance revival emphasizes a moral cleansing of individual live and of a society as a whole.
· The evangelism revival focus on winning souls to Christ
· The worship revival centers on magnifying God.
· The deeper live revival emphasizes the experience of God's indwelling
· The spiritual warfare revival devotes its energies to battling Satan and the other demons
· Holy Spirit revival is characterized by extensive manifestations of the Spirit.
· The reconciliation revival leads to the removal of barriers to racial and ethnic harmony
· The liberation revival focuses on gaining freedom from corporate and personal bondage of sin.
· The Prayer revival displays considerable efforts at intercession and other forms of prayer.

Though any given revival may manifest several of these characteristics, most revivals tend to display one trait more prominently than others.

Since revivals happens when God pours himself on his people, those involved typically experience an extraordinary yet unmistakable sense of divine presence. We should note that strange and controversial phenomena are often associated with revivals: the "jerks," shouting, "being slain in the spirit," speaking in tongues. Barking, dancing in the spirit and more. Since none of these extraordinary manifestations have appeared in all revivals they are not mandatory for a spiritual awakening. Nevertheless most of these unusual phenomena occur more than once in these accounts. What could cause these occurrences?
An answer offered is this, when the divine is poured into the human, we can expect the human to react in extraordinary ways.


A Nation Spiritually Asleep

The Pilgrims settled in this country during the first part of the 17th century. During the first part of the 18th century the churches in America (for the most part) were chilled into a deep sleep. The new generations had lost the spiritual zeal of their parents. The older generation had come to this country seeking God They wanted to have the freedom to worship God as they knew they should. As the years passed, the newer generations began to lose what their parents had fought so hard to gain. As prosperity, commerce and wealth increased, they began to forget God from whom all blessings flow! They became wrapped up in materialism and were more concerned about the things of this world than they were the things of God.
How is your spiritual zeal as compared with your parents? Are you concerned about the things of God as much as your parents are? Do you love the Bible, God's holy Word, as much as your parents do? Do you attend church for the same reasons your parents do? How is your spiritual temperature compared with the spiritual temperature of your parents? Assuming that your parents are saved and love the Lord, are you on fire for the Lord as much as they are? If your spiritual zeal is much less than theirs, what do you think will be true of your children? your grandchildren?

The spiritual condition of America in the early part of the 17th century has been described by different men who actually lived during the time. For example, in 1706 Dr. Cotton Mather said, "there is a general and horrible decay of Christianity among those who profess it."

Is there a difference between professing Christ and possessing Christ?

(John 1:12 KJV) But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name:

(Titus 1:16 KJV) They profess that they know God; but in works they deny him, being abominable, and disobedient, and unto every good work reprobate.

(1 John 2:4 KJV) He that saith, I know him, and keepeth not his commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him.

(1 John 2:9 KJV) He that saith he is in the light, and hateth his brother, is in darkness even until now.

(1 John 5:12 KJV) He that hath the Son hath life; and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life.


In 1721 Dr. Increase Mathèr said, "Oh, degenerate New England, what art thou come to at this day? How art those sins become common in thee that once were not so much as heard of in this land?" The sins which were once unheard of had become quite common!

In 1730 Jonathan Edwards complained of the drunkenness and licentious living (very loose living, especially sexually) among the youth of the town and the lack of parental control and godly example. The young people were worldly and wild, the parents had no control over it and they were very poor examples themselves!

At about the same time a Boston preacher gave this sad report: "Alas, as though nothing but the most amazing thunders and lightning's, and the most terrible earthquakes could awaken us, we are at this time fallen into as dead a sleep as ever." There was a tremendous need for a spiritual awakening to arouse the people of the land.

Later in 1740 the Rev. Samuel Blair commented on conditions in Pennsylvania: "The nature and necessity of the new birth were little known." People did not understand what the new birth was all about (see John 3:1-8) and they failed to realize how necessary it was (see John 3:7 "must"). what about your friends and neighbors and relatives?

The New Birth

(John 3:1-8 KJV) There was a man of the Pharisees, named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews: {2} The same came to Jesus by night, and said unto him, Rabbi, we know that thou art a teacher come from God: for no man can do these miracles that thou doest, except God be with him. {3} Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. {4} Nicodemus saith unto him, How can a man be born when he is old? can he enter the second time into his mother's womb, and be born? {5} Jesus answered, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. {6} That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. {7} Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born again. {8} The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit.

John 3:1: Nicodemus' coming by night may be attributed to any one of four different motives: (1) his fear of criticism; (2) his desire for a private conference before committing himself to Jesus; (3) his desire for uninterrupted conversation; or (4) his lack of opportunity during the day (cf. 7:50). It should not be overlooked that "night" has a foreboding significance in this Gospel (cf. 9:4; 11:10; 13:30; 19:34).

John 3:3: Since Jesus knew what was in the man, He answered Nicodemus' question before it was asked. "Most assuredly" (amen, amen, Gk., the doubling of the affirmation being unique to John's Gospel) is Christ's way of introducing a statement of utmost importance (cf. Matt. 5:26, note). "Born again" can also be rendered "born from above" (cf. v. 31), which emphasizes the origin of salvation (Gal. 4:19). See also Luke 1:3 and Acts 26:5, in which the