One practice that made the Great Awakening's impact last so long | Clip from Sanctification

The title of the sermon is New Converts Exhorted to Cleave, or Cling, to the Lord. And it really is a helpful sermon. So Chuck, why don't you introduce us to its preacher?

The preacher was Isaac Chandler, born in Bristol, England. He came to America, I think, at age 32. Pastored and passed away at 48. Lived early 18th century. Not a lot known about him. He was a Baptist pastor, and I think the only Baptist pastor that we have among these selection of sermons.

Mr. Roberts points out that in the early 18th century, the Baptist movement was not particularly strong, especially in the U .S. And they were not on the forefront of evangelistic efforts. And so, they're working with Whitefield here.

They wouldn't have necessarily participated. A lot of them were more hard-shelled and didn't believe in using means to call people to salvation. But Chandler was not one of those. And so, after Whitefield came through, Whitefield encouraged the ministers in the area to form kind of discipleship groups, helping the young believers with various teaching.

And so, the ministers in the South Carolina area, where Chandler lived, did that. And Chandler was one of them. And they took turns preaching. And so, this is the sermon from his turn, preaching to these young converts that came to Christ under Whitefield's preaching.

I was trying to find more information about him, other than what we have right here. There is a diary that was published at one time, but it's out of print now. So, that's about all I know to tell you.

The Baptist Context of Chandler’s Sermon

A couple of really interesting things before we hit the sermon is, this is the only Baptist in the book, as far as we know. And it is good for us, I mean, we're Baptists. It's good for Baptists to look back and see, historically, what Baptists believed, what early American Baptists believed.

We're not bound by tradition. If we feel that they have departed from Scripture at any point, our conscience is held bound to Scripture. But, we both feel that Chandler is a good example of a biblically balanced man.

And it would be foolish to ignore, you know, the men that preceded us. And so, it's good to see how early Baptists approached things. Because we do believe, once saved, always saved. You know, that's not a very careful way of saying it, but we believe that.

And Chandler believes that. And yet, the things he says are so biblically, you know, carefully held in balance. Another thing is that, as you mentioned, Whitefield encouraged the young believers to gather together, and for the ministers in the area to help them.

Society Meetings and Discipleship After the Great Awakening

One of the key elements of the Great Awakening, or especially in the UK, the Evangelical Revival, was this gathering of believers into small groups. They called them society meetings, or the Welsh called them experience meetings, where you would kind of get beneath the surface of the Christian life and deal with each other.

And the Welsh pastor, or preacher, and hymnist, William Williams, from Pentekellen, wrote a book on this called The Door to the Society Meeting, where he talks about how you can guide a group through this.

And I believe it was Mrs. Lloyd-Jones, Dr. Lloyd-Jones' wife, who had that translated and put out. Teddy will have to double-check my facts and make sure. But that's still available. So, you know, young believers meeting together under the guidance of an older believer was really at the heart of the, we would say, you know, it was what gave that wonderful preaching in the Great Awakening a lasting substance.

After a great preacher like Whitefield leaves your town, how does it continue on? And we'll talk about that at the very end, but it is important for us as we read the sermon to think of more than ourselves.

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