Contributions of the 1st and 2nd Awakening — Winkie Pratney

The First Great Awakening and Its Leading Preachers

13th week on the contributions of the reformers. And I want to now give you a little of the contributions of the first and second awakenings. You wanted to place this somewhere in, uh, in history. So there's a little awkward.

It's hard to keep all these notes on this thing and not have it hang on to my mic and do all this all at one time, but, uh, first awakening, we could say roughly took place in the 1700s to the 1800s and, uh, that was the first massive revival.

Um, it had been called that and it involved the following characters, John and Charles Wesley. Uh, Charles was his brother. As a matter of fact, John Wesley had quite a few brothers and sisters, uh, John Wesley lived from 1703 to 1791.

Now the, uh, the date of that ending is very significant, I think, because, uh, the year after he died, another revivalist was born who carried America into the second great awakening. Also, George Whitfield, uh, George Whitfield, remember was the, the man who grew up in the, in the bars and stuff, Whitfield, quite unlike John.

John was a little short guy, um, scholar, sort of his hair parted in the middle, he'd get up and sort of go like this with his hair so he could see, uh, when he, when he spoke, um, very, very calm, very quiet, um, stood up a lot of opposition.

Matter of fact, people actually smashed down doors where he was having meetings, um, burst into, into the thing, whole mobs to stone him to death. And he would just walk out in the middle like Moses through the Red Sea and say, which one of you has a quarrel with me?

You, you, you, and they'd all go like, you know, look around. George Whitfield, on the other hand, was all fire and light. Whitfield was so powerful a speaker that, uh, it was rumored on a clear day you could hear George Whitfield for five miles.

And he wasn't only loud, he was good. Uh, celebrated Shakespearean actor, Robert Garrick, who was the top actor of his day, said he would give a thousand gold guineas to be able to say the word, oh, like George Whitfield.

And Whitfield's dramatic gift was so powerful that all of the top, not only did people turn out at five or four or five in the morning to hear him preach, um, on the way to work, coal miners who would be weeping and you'd see those ones coming back from their night shifts, there'd be these white, um, streams down their black faces where their tears had washed the coal dust away.

But, uh, he, he was so powerful in his dramatic gifts that famous figures like Benjamin Franklin and some of the top literary critics of their day came out to hear him preach, sat there in horses and listened with the other 20 or 30 ,000 that turned out to hear this young 23-year-old preach, um, with, with power.

As a matter of fact, in one particular illustration, he was talking about the sinner, like a blind man who has lost his stick and he, he, uh, he had the guy walk out to the edge of a cliff and he talked about the great danger of being blind in your sins and how the whole chasm of eternity is right in front of you.

And he brought this guy right out to the edge of the cliff and then he took one step forward and one of these famous literary critics who was watching was so into the message, he forgot it was a message, and he went, my God, he's gone, you know, he, he just forgot.

Uh, Whitefield, the exact opposite of John and Charles, remember they were friends in the early days, uh, then Field broke away from the Holy Club, uh, became a Christian. John became a real Christian later.

The two remained friends till the day of their death, uh, but two totally different theological backgrounds. John and Charles started off as good Anglicans, uh, died good Anglicans, um, the thing they left behind was the Methodist church who were good Anglicans, uh, but, uh, George Whitefield was quite heavily influenced by men like Jonathan Edwards in the U .S. and, uh, John and Charles Wesley became the more, much more Arminian in their theology and George Whitefield, much more Calvinist.

As a matter of fact, I have copies of their letters and they are models of disagreement and love. My dearest brother George, I rejoice in what God is doing in, uh, wonderfully through your ministry. However, I utterly disagree with what you're saying, you know, that kind of thing, really nice.

Jonathan Edwards, David Brainerd, and the Ministry of the Wesleys

Uh, also adding to this collection would be Jonathan Edwards and he's the man that we've already mentioned over there in the U .S., one of the greatest native intellects of all time, that, uh, the man who saw the Jesus movement of his day in America.

Jonathan Edwards lived from 1703, I'd better put Whitefield's date down so you'll know that he was alive, 1764, and Whitefield lived from 1714, just a, quite a short life. George Whitefield, he, he burned out, 1770.

These guys were tough, these old reformers, uh, these, these preachers. John Wesley circled on horseback, I told you he, he, uh, he traveled 225 ,000 miles on horseback. To give you an idea of that, uh, in 52 years he went, uh, preaching over 40 ,000 messages.

His travels took him an equivalent 10 circuits of the globe on horseback, to give you an idea. Uh, he carried on correspondence, uh, all the time, he, he, I've seen his letters just sometimes writing up to 200 letters a week, these guys, with pen, no word processors and mailing lists, with a quill pen.

Um, and wrote 233 books on all kinds of subjects, including home health remedies, primitive medicine, which was in use for almost 200 years, and one of the earliest textbooks on electricity. And in fact, I visited Wesley's, uh, place where he, um, lived in England and saw a machine there that he'd been working on, actually used among the Methodists to help speed the process of healing by using electricity, bone healing, which we, we know a bit about today.

But these guys were not just religious people, they were people who Wesley did more perhaps to teach people to read and write in England than any other person of a century. So we talk about these people's influence, it wasn't just a religious thing, they influenced the entire nation.

This was John Wesley's, uh, he said, Leisure and I have taken leave of one another. I propose to be busy as long as I live, if my health has so long indulged me. And then, uh, his rule for Christian living was this, do all the good you can, by all the means you can, in all the ways you can, in all places you can, at all times you can, to all the people you can, as long as ever you can.

And he did it. Uh, matter of fact, the complete works of John Wesley have not been published up until our time, and they're in the process of being published now, but nobody would be able to afford them.

Um, he, he did over 5 ,000 tracts and pamphlets, as well as those 233 books he wrote. He preaches as if he had nothing to do but preach, he administers as if he had nothing to do but administer, and at death he left behind nothing much except a few silver spoons and 79 ,000 English Methodists and 40 ,000 in America, and by 1957 it had grown to 40 million worldwide.

That's all he left. He preached for 65 years, dying finally at 88. His last words were, the best of all, God is still with us. And he tried to sing this hymn, I'll praise my maker while I breath, and when my voice is lost in death, praise shall employ my noblest powers.

And he just about got it out, and then he died. Uh, he said about 10 in the morning, he said farewell, and without a groan he fell asleep in Christ. So, uh, his brother Charles left some 9 ,000 hymns and poems, so eat your heart out, Amy, um, including things like, And Can It Be, that I Should Gain, O For A Thousand Tongues To Sing, and those guys needed a thousand tongues, they were putting out so much, um, that was John.

As a matter of fact, when they first started their ministry, John, both Wesleys were attacked, both physically and in print. Um, George Whitfield, a guy came up to him and said, I came with a rock to break your skull, but your sermon got the better of me and broke my heart.

I dropped this rock and got saved. Um, William Law defended the Wesleys in a way that turned out to be prophetic, because uh, the Foggs Weekly Journal in 1732 put these two men down and said they're a bunch of idiots.

And William Law said this, It looks as if the strict rule of primitive Christianity has removed a great way out of sight, that we are not able to behold the attempt to revise it without wonder and offense.

If it shall please God to give these gentlemen the grace to persevere and the blessing of so long a life, they may be the means of reforming a vicious world, and may rejoice at the good they have done, perhaps half a century after most of their social opponents, the gay scoffers of the present generation are laid low and forgotten as if they had never been.

And that was prophetic, because that's precisely what they did. Now these, uh, these men, Jonathan Edwards, remember Jonathan Edwards' son-in-law was David Brainerd, the young man that, uh, prayed his life out on the snow for the Indians, coughing blood, they had TB, and uh, died eventually, but saw tremendous revivals among North American Indians.

These people, uh, belong to what they call the First Awakening. And I'll take you now briefly to the Second Awakening, I'll just give you these all together to give you an idea of, uh, the power of what happened, uh, during this time.

The Second Awakening took place around, uh, the, the beginning of the 1800s now, the 1800s, and what's significant, there were a number of men in this, some of them were the, the Methodists that Wesley had sent over to America, but whereas this first one really started in, uh, England, the second one kicked off in America, and key figure here would be Charles G. Finney.

Some of you may have, uh, seen pictures of Finney, usually they don't do him justice, they're usually taken when he's about 90 years old, and he looks like he's got burnt cork screwed into his eyes, you know, he's sort of standing there like this, and actually Charles Finney was like Davy Crockett.

He was, uh, tall, blond, uh, sort of blue-eyed, very impressive, um, athlete, he was, uh, one of the best, uh, marksmen, and, uh, he had a tremendous sense of humor, he was six foot two, you get an idea of Davy Crockett, you know, that, that was what Charles Finney was like.

He was a lawyer, um, an athlete, his new wife didn't mind waiting for months when revivals repeatedly broke out on his way to take her home after the wedding, uh, and he must have been really a neat guy, um, he said when he was 20 he excelled every man and boy he met in every species of toil or sport, no man could throw him, no man could knock his hat off, no man could run faster, jump further, leap higher, or throw a ball with greater force and precision.

He went to this church, um, George Gale was the, uh, was the preacher there, but the reason why he went is he, uh, helped direct the choir, he played cello, he wasn't a Christian, um, and he was in love with Lydia Root Andrews, one of the pretty young Christian girls who visited there, and later became his first and deeply loved wife, actually Charles Finney wore out three wives, uh, the final one outlasted him, but, you know, it was real tough keeping up with Charlie, uh, Charles Finney's conversion reads like something out of the book of Acts, if you have one biography on your shelf you ought to read, it is the autobiography of Charles Finney, it is one of the most powerful, uh, shocking, challenging biographies that I think I ever read in my early Christian life, and I mentioned to you how I had a vision of Jesus, um, he talked about, uh, having a mighty baptism of the Holy Spirit without ever knowing anything like this was ever possible, he said, the breath of God seemed to fan me like immense wings, and then he said, uh, I wept aloud with joy and love, I do not know but I should say I literally bellowed out the unutterable gushings of my heart, these waves came over me and over me and over me, one after the other, till I recollect I cried out I shall die if these waves continue to pass over me, I said, Lord, I cannot bear anymore, yet I had no fear of death, and that, shortly after that is when the guy knocked on his door and said, Brother Finney, uh, where have you been, I have a case for you to try, and he said, I have a retainer from the Lord Jesus Christ to plead his case and I cannot plead yours, and the guy went away in deep conviction, got saved, and about everybody talked over the next three days, went and headed for the woods and became Christians.

Uh, there are three things that stand out in Finney's life, I'll give you his, uh, his, uh, dates here to show you the significance of this thing, Charles Finney was born in 1792, which is the exact year after John Wesley died, it's like God, one torch dropped, and then God started another one, and, uh, he lived also a long, long life, lived till 1875, as a matter of fact, secular historians say Charles Finney brought America into the, uh, 19th century, he was the, the, um, one of the most effective and powerful figures.

There are a couple of others, uh, names that, that, uh, turn up a little bit later in the second awakening, because these two awakenings, remember, span that period from 1700 to 1800. The second awakening is another guy whose name is Jeremiah Lamphere, and I'll just briefly mention him, Jeremiah Lamphere was one of Finney's converts, he, uh, got saved in Broadway Tabernacle, Church Finney started later in his ministry, and America had a terrible collapse, an economic collapse, and businesses were, uh, were just collapsing all over the place, there were thousands and thousands of people out of work, and, uh, with nothing to do, people were just roaming the streets that had all this greed and gain, uh, and speculation and everything fell apart, and this young man, Jeremiah Lamphere, who had lost his business, he decided, we really need some prayer, and so he went downtown, in Fulton, out of Fulton Street, and he passed out these little pamphlets, if you want to pray, we're going to be meeting in this church, from 12 to 1 o 'clock every day, and, uh, people didn't have any house to do, so, he went there and he waited all on his own, half an hour went past, three quarters of an hour went past, nobody, and then a couple of steps, a few people came in, and then a few people came in, the following day, more people came in, and by the end of three months, there were 10 ,000 people praying, and, uh, another mighty sweep took place within there.

Finney's Three Contributions: Holiness, Prayer, and Revival Leadership

Lamphere, and they call that the Fulton Street Prayer Meeting, or the Prayer Meeting Revival. Finney quickly, three great contributions Charles Finney made to ministry, uh, first of all, his willingness to change, it was, Finney broke all the rules, told you he didn't look like a preacher, he didn't sound like a preacher, he didn't pray like a preacher, preachers are supposed to pray, hello, and he didn't, uh, he had an intense and loving devotional life, and prayer, he loved Christ, his favorite song, um, book of scripture was the Song of Solomon, he said, this book has whetted my soul to Jesus, and then, his radical message of practical and immediate holiness.

Now, you've got to understand the impact that the preaching of a holy life, when you tell people, God calls us to be holy, you're going to get into trouble, let me just tell you that right off the start.

Charles Finney was so attacked by preachers of his time, not only did unsaved people attack him, preachers attacked him, um, one preacher, Lyman Beecher, threatened to oppose Finney, this is what he said, if Charles Finney comes to our city, I'll meet him at the gate of the city with cannon, that's a preacher.

Uh, what they did, you imagine this, here are two figures, um, they're being, they're like guys, they are, they are effigies, and they're hung from a tree and set on fire. Okay? Dancing around them, uh, is, is, uh, people screaming and yelling as they burn these figures and effigies.

Dancing around these two burning effigies, uh, preachers. The two figures represent Charles Finney and Brother Nash, his prayer companion. This is a religious gathering. Um, uh, in one of Finney's biographies, it said, preachers and pew warmers alike joined forces against the two men who did more to spearhead revival than any other pair in American history.

Finney became so incredibly alive that everywhere he went, life leaped from him to others like flames in a firestorm. It is impossible to read about this man without being shaken. Um, Charles Finney, among the 23 million Americans and 40 ,000 ministers of his time, was unquestionably the most impressive religious revolutionary that America ever produced.

When he first gave a public account of his own conversion, the tumult began. A fellow lawyer left the meeting with a comment. He is an earnest, but he is deranged. When he stood up to preach his first revival messages in the backwoods region of New York, startling chaos ensued.

One man came to the meeting with a pistol, intent on killing the speaker of the evening. Instead, he fell to the floor and was soundly saved. Everywhere for the next 40 years, that fire broke out. It would be true to say that his life and writings influenced more people towards revival and social reform than any other preacher of the last century.

He was a lawyer who became a Christian, and so he had all that lawyer's logic. He would face audiences like a lawyer would face a jury. And he said his old boss, the judge that he worked for, told him how to preach.

He said, say it as many times as there are people in the jury. And he'd look at them. As a matter of fact, he took a meeting with 300 top New York state bar lawyers, and he presented the case for Christ.

And at the end of it, half of those characters, and you know how sneaky lawyers are at getting out of things, half of them got saved, including a major circuit judge. So Finney's stuff is well worth reading.

If you don't have any of Finney's material, B. Raymond Edmond, past president of Wheaton said, in all my reading on revival, I've found nothing to be equal to Finney's lectures on revival. No other book on the subject has been so mightily used of God.

Catherine Booth read it and helped her start the Salvation Army with her husband. A young man called George Williams read it and launched a thing called the YMCA, which is today we know is just, you know, sort of the building down there where you can stay if you've got no place else.

The Obligation of Man in Revival and Missions

Those days it was a team challenge of its generation. Many missionaries read it, went out, and saw tremendously powerful results. I want to now summarize for you the teachings of both these block of men and give you that now, because we'll call this Contributions of the First and Second Awakening.

And I want to focus in on some of these, because when we see God do something in a nation, we will see these elements come in. You remember the three from the Reformation? You remember the three? What were the three contributions we have from the Reformation?

You remember those? Justification by faith, one. Lordship of Jesus Christ. Sovereignty of God. All right? Now I'm going to give you three more. These ones came from the First and Second Awakening. First one is the obligation of man.

Now the Reformation is very, very strong on upholding the glory of God and His rulership over the world. It's a very strong emphasis, remember, on the sovereignty of God. Somewhere along the way, people forgot that man, too, has a responsibility.

For instance, there was a young man, his name was William Carey. He was a shoemaker, and he prayed often for the world. And he stood up one day before his church and he said, I believe God is calling me to go to other lands and to preach the gospel and to carry the mission of Jesus.

And the people at his church were so steeped in the sovereignty of God, they said, no, sit down, young man. When God wants to convert the heathen, He'll do it without your help. Well, William Carey didn't sit down.

He went out and stared, and he became the father of modern missions. I want to give you some scriptures here. You just write these down. I'll read them out to you, and you just write the references down.

Psalm 24, 6. This is the generation of them that seek Him, that seek your face, O Jacob. See, the initiation of, in revival, there is that sovereign side when the day of Pentecost is fully come. But there is also a strong responsibility of us to take care of our side.

We'll call this responsibility. Psalm 71, 18. David prayed this. Now also when I am old and gray-headed, O God, forsake me not till I have showed your strength to this generation and your power to everyone that is to come.

Psalm 71, 18. You all know 2 Chronicles 7, 14. You should have memorized that. And that says what? If my people to call by my name shall humble themselves and pray and seek my face, turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven, forgive their sin, and heal their land.

Now I want to ask you this question. Where does the healing of the land begin? With the people. See? If my people, who are called by my name, that's the calling of God on your life, shall humble themselves, that's first, and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways.

That's all obligation of man. Now I'm going to give you another one here. Psalm 24, verses 3 through to 5. Who shall ascend into the hill of the Lord? For who shall stand in his holy place? This is Psalm 24, verses 3 through to 5.

He that hath clean hands and a pure heart, who has not lifted up his soul to vanity, Psalm 24, verses 3 to 5, nor sworn deceitfully, he shall receive the blessing from the Lord and righteousness from the God of his salvation.

One of the small awakenings that took place in history happened when people had been praying a long, long time for God to do something wonderful, and they just prayed on week after week, month after month, with absolutely nothing happening.

It seemed it all. Till one day a man stood up and he read the scripture, and he said, brethren, we have prayed a long time for God to do something. And he said, and now we must answer this question. Do I have clean hands?

Is my heart pure? And God came. See? It was a visitation. Here is a verse, 1 Chronicles 28, verse 9. This is a verse given by a man called the man after God's heart, 1 Chronicles 28, verse 9, to a man who was called the wisest man who ever lived.

Man with a perfect heart, heart after God, his advice as a dad to the boy who was called the wisest man who ever lived. And you, Solomon, my son, know thou the God of your father, and serve him with a perfect heart and with a willing mind.

That's 1 Chronicles 28, 9. If you're having trouble writing these down, by the way, that saves you a bit of time. You don't have to put those little dots in that drive people crazy. For the Lord searches all hearts and understands all the imaginations of the thoughts.

If you seek him, he will be found of you. But if you forsake him, he will cast you off forever. There's very strong responsibility in all of these verses. And I'll give you, let me give you two more. 2 Chronicles 16, 9.

2 Chronicles 16, 9. A, first part of the verse. For the eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the whole earth to show himself strong on behalf of those whose heart is perfect towards him. And with that, I want to focus for a little while on this word.

Holiness, Perfect Hearts, and the Call to Repentance

I have here a Bible that, as I've told you, is pre-marked. And you're all, you still got your Bible, son. This Bible is a pre-marked thing. It's been broken down, taking all the thousands of verses in the Bible and then coding them in color according to what topic they are dealing with.

So you can, these, all these red verses are all verses pertaining to the work of salvation. Now, one of the interesting things about this Bible is that it, this particular early version of it, gives you all of the verses in a block like that.

For instance, this block has to do with Jesus died to save sinners. So they've done it as a red D. How many of you have ever heard a sermon on faith? Put your hands up. Have you ever heard a sermon on faith?

A few of you have, probably. One or two. See this, see this little block here? F. You see that block there? Those are all the verses in the Bible on faith. It's quite a lot. And the just to live by faith is an Old Testament verse.

Now, how many ever heard a sermon on repentance, on confession restitution? Okay. Here are all the verses in the Bible on repentance, on confession restitution. Roughly three times the number on faith.

So I'm going to ask you a question. If you were preaching the gospel and the long-term thing, what would you emphasize first? Okay. Now, what is this one that starts here at the bottom, goes a full page on the other side and actually goes over the page?

That's why, any other guesses? Love. We have one vote for love. Anything else? More love. Sovereignty of God. A lot on that. What was that? The rock of God. Yeah, there's a, well, that's actually over here.

You know what this one is? Holy living should follow conversion. Holy living should follow conversion. As a matter of fact, it is a major theme of the Bible. Without holiness, no man shall see the Lord.

Those of you interested in the wrath of God, there is a lot on that too. Punishment. Page four. I want to talk to you briefly now about this word, perfect. Whose heart is perfect. The second major contribution that the first and second awakening explored, that the reformers had not really spent a lot of time on, was this phrase, holiness to the Lord.

And I want to talk about the word perfect. Now, Christians even have bumper stickers today that say, Christians aren't perfect, just forgiven. Remember that? It's going to be interesting standing before God one day, wrapped in nothing but your bumper sticker, giving an account of this verse.

Be ye therefore perfect. Well, you know what? Everything's perfect. Well, it can't be in the Bible. Well, unfortunately, that verse is in the Bible, perfecting holiness and the fear of the Lord, many, many times in Scripture.

The simple fact is, in revival, people come into a conscious sense of the holiness of God, and they realize just how much compromise has been allowed in their own lives, how much darkness has been let in, that it totally dilutes the power of what God is trying to do.

And he is of pure eyes and to look on evil. The same God who is utterly devoted to loving you, is utterly devoted to your purity and your holiness. He loves you too much to let you get away with nonsense.

Now, I want to talk briefly about what this word perfect is. Perfect does not mean infinitely perfect. It is not infinite perfection. When God says be perfect, he doesn't mean be infinitely perfect. If that is so, nobody is perfect, can ever be perfect.

No angel, no angel that's ever sinned, that's never sinned, no human, certainly, because there's nobody infinite except him. Secondly, it cannot be a perfection of conduct, nor even a perfection of reputation.

In other words, it is quite possible for somebody who has a holy life to be slandered and misrepresented. They said of Jesus, check this out, he has a demon. Think how scary that is. To say of God who became man and dwelt among us, he has a demon.

The reason why he is able to do those things is because he hangs around with the prince of darkness. That was what the religious leader said of Jesus. So though Christ's life was utterly perfect, his reputation was not.

When they first, the Pharisees met with Jesus, and you won't catch this sometimes, but when Jesus was talking about where he was from, one of the people attacking him said this, we have one father, even Abraham, we be not born of fornication.

And the implication in that is, like some people we know. And you've got to understand this, Jesus was virgin born. And you can imagine if you were a young teenager called Mary, 16 or 17 years old, and you get pregnant, and everybody goes, was that Joseph?

And she goes, no it wasn't. And you say, well who was it? Well, it's hard to explain. This angel visited me. I mean, would you believe that if you went to Nazareth High School? And around Jesus' life hung the shadow.

People said, well it wasn't Joseph, because we asked him, wasn't Joseph? She says it was his angel and the Holy Spirit in that. And that this being, this boy she's got is actually God, and it's a miracle.

But you know what the reputation went around Jesus. He, as a matter of fact, it was still circulated among the Jews for the first century. Jesus was the bastard son of some traveling camel driver. And when they used that phrase, they said, we be not born of fornication, implied like some people we know.

So even having a perfect heart, perfect life, does not necessarily mean to say people will think so. Nor will they be able to say so. He's perfect. Matter of fact, in the Bible, perfection is not related to the conduct, only indirectly.

It is related to the heart. It is a perfect heart that God requires of us. Now I want to talk briefly about the heart for a little while. What is the heart in the scriptures? When God says I'll give you a new heart, does he rip out this cardiac muscle and replace it with something a little better?

When we use the phrase heart, we use it today, even today, as an analogy exactly the way they use it in the Bible. The heart represents the ultimate choice or intention, if you like, of our beings. Now if a guy says to a girl, I love you with all my heart, what does he mean?

Hopefully he means this. He doesn't mean I'll rip this out and give it to you. What he means is that I prefer you above everything and everybody else. So we could say supreme preference. What is the supreme preference of our lives?

Because whatever that is, that is what our heart has been given to. The choice then of our lives, the supreme choice of our lives is the motivation or the intention out of which everything flows. Now here is a man and he's going to church.

The Heart's Supreme Choice and the Meaning of Conversion

It's Sunday morning, he's smiling, he's got a big Bible, he's in a suit and he's whistling a hymn. We look at this man and we think he must be a Christian. Actually he isn't, he's an insurance salesman.

He figures there's a lot of people in church that are going to need insurance. He stole the Bible out of a hotel that he's staying in. His suit is on lease and the hymn he's singing is one that he heard, it's an update from an old spiritual that he heard in the past, it's the only thing he knows, it's religious.

Now this man's outward conduct is so far so good. But God doesn't look at the outside conduct, he looks at the heart. And the real question is why are you doing what you're doing? I believe when you stand before God you will only be asked two questions.

The first question, it won't be what are you doing? And we'll do it like this. Say I took your heart, this is the heart, the supreme choice of our life belongs ultimately to either God, our rightful ruler, or to ourselves in one way or another.

Underneath that we'll call that supreme preference, or the supreme choice. Underneath that we have major choices. These might be things like what am I going to do for a job, or let's get really classy, a career.

Here's another major choice. Will I marry? If so, whom will I marry? You shouldn't have to make that decision every week like some movie stars do. Getting to wash and wear wedding dresses. Though this used to be a big thing.

Where will I live? What nation? That used to be a big thing. Of course now you can live in ten nations if you want to. I don't want to, but I do. These are major decisions. And then underneath these are what we could call more routine decisions.

For instance, brushing your teeth. You had to learn that. Remember when your mother first taught you how to put toothpaste on your thing? Now look at you. You're just so awesome. What about writing? Remember when you first learned to write?

Now look at you. You don't even think about that now. It's all habitual. It's a series of choices that you've automated now. And you just go, yes. Some of you look around and write. You're just awesome.

How did you get those routine choices? We could call those habits. Well, they come from a series of immediate choices, but the only ones you think of are the immediate choices. That's right now. Shall I write this down?

Oh, wait. I don't know. Let me wait for just a second. Am I going to write? Yes. No, I'm not going to write. I'm going to wait. Yes. I'm going to look. Yes, I am going to write. No. Yeah. Those are all immediate choices.

And you notice these choices aren't as significant as these ones. And these ones aren't as significant as these ones. But these build this, which in turn build this. So here's a guy and he's learned to do his hair.

The immediate choice he's doing is running a comb through his hair. The next question is, why is he doing that? Well, that's part of the reason he's learned how to do that to make his hair look good. And the next question is, why does he want his hair to look good?

Because his particular job requires that he have good looking hair. But you keep on asking the questions. These things might be like what we call what choices. These might be like how choices. But the really significant choices come all the way up and then they turn into these.