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‘Though He Slay Me’ — Why the Silence on This Verse?
Audio Transcript
Today’s question comes from a podcast host by the name of Tony. It’s from me! I’ve got a question that’s been on my mind, Pastor John. It’s something I’m trying to figure out. It’s about one of the most remarkable statements in the Bible when it comes to this topic of God’s sovereign design in our suffering. Job 13:15 is the text I’m thinking about. Job says, “Though he slay me, I will hope in him.” It’s a remarkable line, made famous in more recent times by Shane and Shane and their incredible and powerful song by that title: “Though You Slay Me.” Years back, Desiring God partnered with them to record a new edition of the music video that featured a sermon clip of yours, a remix we published in APJ 639. The music-video version of that song now has a whopping nine million views on YouTube, and counting!
So here’s my question about Job 13:15. I know you’ve made passing mentions over the years to this phrase “though he slay me,” but I see only one explicit mention of the text in your entire ministry corpus — from one of your earliest sermons, preached seven and a half years before you even became a pastor. It comes in a sermon titled “Your Calamity in 1973,” preached on New Year’s Eve 1972, in Greenville, South Carolina. As we approach another new year, and the fiftieth anniversary of that sermon, I see that you’ve never mentioned the text again in a sermon. And you’ve never tweeted the line either, though it’s a text that seems to be primed for short-form contexts. In mid-November, when your annual Bible-reading trek takes you through Job 13, you’ve tweeted a couple other verses from the chapter (like Job 13:5 and 24), but never Job 13:15. The meaning of the text is debated. So where do you land now? Are you certain, or uncertain, of its meaning? And with such a text that has become synonymous with Desiring God, why the silence? Wow, Tony, with a thorough question today!
“God, in his absolute ownership and sovereignty over all life, appoints the time and the kind of every death.”
The first thing to say is that I love the truth — and it is the truth, spoken from God’s own mouth — that God, in his absolute ownership and sovereignty over all life, appoints the time and the kind of every death of every person on this planet. And this fact of God’s right to give and to take life is not a reason to reject him, but a reason to hope in him. I love that truth, which means that I love the fact that every Christian — owned by the Creator, doubly owned by the Redeemer — can say and should say, “Though he slay me, I will hope in him” (Job 13:15). Yes, we can say that. We should say that.
Job’s God-Exalting Theology
That is the ESV of Job 13:15. It is virtually the same as the NIV, virtually the same as the NASB and the KJV. If the declaration that God slays — that is, takes the life of his own precious children — and I don’t doubt that Job was a precious, blood-bought child of God, the blood of Jesus going back over the Old Testament and covering all the saints’ sins, as it says in Romans 3:25. I don’t doubt that. If that declaration, that God takes the life of his people — and that while he does it, we ought to keep hoping in him, trusting in him, loving him, treasuring him — seems foreign to us, or unbiblical to us, or contrary to God’s nature, then we have not been paying attention to our Bibles or thinking rightly about what we are reading, including the book of Job.
In the very first chapter of Job, God takes the life — you could use the word kills — all ten of Job’s children. Job saw this. He saw this, and he confessed that fact, tore his clothes, shaved his head, fell on the ground, and said, “Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return. The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord” (Job 1:21). That’s a breathtaking statement of worship. “The Lord has taken my ten children away. Blessed be his name.”
Sometimes people say, “Yeah, but Job was a bad theologian at that point.” No, the inspired writer comments in the next verse that Job “did not sin” with his lips when he said that, as if he knew what people would think when they read it (Job 1:22). It was true, godly worship. Then, in Job 12:10, Job said, “In [God’s] hand is the life of every living thing and the breath of all mankind.” God owns all things. He has absolute rights over all living things. He gives and he takes when and how he decides in his infinite wisdom. This is part of what it means to be God, the Creator and sustainer and governor of all things. Deuteronomy 32:39 says (this is God talking), “See now that I, even I, am he, and there is no god beside me; I kill and I make alive; I wound and I heal; and there is none that can deliver out of my hand.”
More Than the Sparrows
Now, Tony, you know that I wrote a book on providence recently. Fifty pages of that book are devoted to this one single biblical reality. It’s section 5, called “Providence Over Life and Death.” Dozens and dozens of texts say this, like James 4:15. Don’t presume upon tomorrow. “Instead you ought to say, ‘If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.’” If the Lord wills, John Piper will live to the end of this podcast. If the Lord does not will it, then this microphone goes silent, and you’re going to wonder what happened. Another minute of life, and it’s the Lord’s will or not. If he wills, we live. If he doesn’t will it, we die.
So whether the text of Job 13:15 has become synonymous with Desiring God, the reality has. And I am glad because it is true and it is glorious. I mean, really, whom would you like to be in charge of your martyrdom or your cancer? Satan? You want Satan to be in charge of your cancer? You want fate to be in charge of your cancer — meaningless, mindless, purposeless forces of nature?
It is a glorious thing that not a single sparrow falls from the sky apart from our Father in heaven. And how much more certainly does he govern the death of his precious children? Even the hairs of our head are all numbered. “Fear not,” Jesus says, “you are of more value than many sparrows” (Matthew 10:28–31).
So it is our joy at Desiring God to say, “My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever” (Psalm 73:26). We love to say, “To live is Christ, and to die is gain” (Philippians 1:21). We love to say, “away from the body and at home with the Lord” (2 Corinthians 5:8). We love to say, “The steadfast love of the Lord is better than life” (see Psalm 63:3) — better than being kept alive.
So, the sentence “Though he slay me, yet I will trust him” is a beautiful expression of reality and biblical faith. God does take the life of his people. And they have every reason to keep on hoping in him, not in spite of that fact, but because of that fact — namely, that he is the all-wise, all-loving, purposeful God, doing nothing from any mistake or any lack of wisdom or any lack of love. Satan doesn’t have the final power over death. Disease doesn’t have the final power over death. Natural disasters don’t have the final power over death. Life and death are in the hand of God, finally. And he is our Father and our Redeemer. By the blood of his Son, he reached back and covered all our sins. And by the resurrection of his Son, he has conquered death.
‘I Have No Hope’?
The reason, Tony, that I have not made Job 13:15 (“Though he slay me, I will hope in him”) the touchstone of my exultation in this glorious truth of God’s sovereignty and our hope is that I knew that if I put too many eggs in that textual basket, someone could come along and make a plausible case that I’m building on sand, because the RSV, for example, translates the verse like this: “Behold, he will slay me; I have no hope.” That sounds like the very opposite of other translations: “Though he slay me, yet I will hope in him.”
“God’s right to give and to take life is not a reason to reject him, but a reason to hope in him.”
There is a real Hebrew textual problem in this verse. There are two Hebrew variants pronounced exactly alike, namely lōw. One variant has lamed-holem-aleph and means “no.” And the other variant has lamed-holem-vav and means “to him” or “in him.” So the readings are “I have hope in him,” or “I have no hope.” And I have not been able to have certainty in my mind, as I’ve worked and worked over the years on the Hebrew, which one the author intended. If the correct variant is “I have no hope,” it doesn’t have to mean (and I don’t think it would mean), “I have no hope beyond the grave,” because that would contradict Job 19:26: “After my skin has been thus destroyed, yet in my flesh I shall see God.” Job, I do believe, was granted insight into eternal life. All it would mean is, “If God slays me now, my hope for vindication on the earth is over. My hope for restored fortunes is over. It’s gone. Life here is over. I’m not going to have a daughter named Jemimah. It’s over.” And that’s true. That would’ve been true. And it would not have been hopeless — just no hope for vindication here and now.
Now, in conclusion, I think the traditional translation, “Though he slay me, I will hope in him,” is the right one. If you put a gun to my head and said, “You’ve got to vote,” I’m voting for the traditional translation. I’m glad the ESV translates it that way. I know — now I don’t just think — that it expresses biblical truth; the traditional translation expresses biblical truth. But I have chosen, over the years, to defend and exult in that glorious biblical truth from dozens of other passages where I know the rug won’t be pulled out from under my exegetical feet.
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The Wonderful, Dangerous World of Sports
I grew up on grass and turf. What did kindergarten-me want to be? A professional soccer player. Where did I spend most evenings as a teen? My club’s soccer complex. How did I choose a college? Division I soccer or bust.
Eventually, my left knee would be the one to bust (twice), but not until I’d devoted nearly twenty years to the game. Looking back on the cotton-tee rec leagues, the pricey club seasons, the long-awaited college career, the coveted national team camps — I see, sharp as a whistle, how God used soccer to increase my wonder of him. But what I also recognize (more painfully than two ACL tears) is how little I guarded myself against sins common to sport.
For every chance to worship God through exercise and competition, there is just as great a risk that we will “love the world or the things in the world” (1 John 2:15). Surely, sports can inspire worship. But often even more so, they can divert our hearts from heaven, casting them instead onto the fleeting rewards of fitness or fame.
Whether you’re young and yet to blow out a knee, a backward-looking athlete like me, or the person who simply loves sports, let’s wonder together at the God enthroned above every beautiful game. And let’s beware together the dangers lurking behind all the practices and tournaments, the social media feeds and TV screens.
Embracing Frailty
We live in an era of “easy everywhere,” as Andy Crouch puts it in The Tech-Wise Family. At the flex of a foot, we can travel from Connecticut to California by car. Our thumbs wiggle, and a friend in the Netherlands instantly knows how we are. Press a button, turn a knob, and lights flicker, water spouts, food warms, pictures snap, books play, music stops, presidents speak, gifts and ambulances and flowers and repairmen arrive. Everywhere we look, life is easy.
Because we can accomplish much while moving little, we tend to see ourselves as masters over matter, rather than creatures under a Creator. The ease with which so many exist can obscure our need to receive “life and breath and everything” from the God who first made and now upholds us (Acts 17:25).
But there is something about dripping sweat and feeling faint, leg muscles refusing to move much faster than a brisk jog, that pushes us to acknowledge our dependence on something outside ourselves. Whether it’s water or electrolytes, a quick banana or half a pizza, fifteen minutes of ice or ten hours of sleep, a teammate or a surgeon, sports make us feel the kind of needy we always are.
Mindful Christians can turn the likes of wind sprints and long recoveries into opportunities for spiritual humility, as we remember that we are weak because we are creaturely — and created to submit our bodies, hearts, and lives to our Creator.
Searching for Fool’s Gold
Unfortunately, sports often rush us headlong in the opposite direction, tempting us to worship “the creature rather than the Creator” (Romans 1:25). When we watch LeBron James dunk, we may be more likely to exclaim, “He’s a basketball god!” than “How awesome is the God who made such an athlete!”
“Christian athletes fight an uphill battle to satisfy themselves in God alone, to pursue his glory alone.”
And that’s just the way the sports world would have it. College programs, ESPN, betting apps — what is “the glory of the immortal God” to them (Romans 1:23)? Usually, nothing more than a detour from the track on which they run: the worship of “mortal man.” As we engage with sports, we would be naive to think that they won’t make unending grabs for our gaze, our hearts, even our very persons, as “followers of [select one of a million players, teams, or leagues].”
The danger isn’t confined to leagues we stream on TV. Sports tempt us to worship ourselves alongside the games and elite athletes who play them. Because of the fall, anywhere we set foot, our sinful flesh starts digging for the fool’s gold of human glory. The rec center’s basketball court is no exception. Sports, whatever the scale, can stoke our millennia-old longing to sparkle in others’ eyes.
In my experience, athletes crave all kinds of self-exalting glitter. There’s physical dominance, which men tend toward, and then there’s physical perfection, more of a female problem. As we mold our bodies into one ideal appearance or another, we simultaneously wield them for other worldly ends, like winning for winning’s sake and success for man’s approval.
Immersed in an arena that not only values but requires physical fitness, Christians can be tempted to care more for the body than the heart — a mistake so common that God would issue a warning as early as three thousand years ago (1 Samuel 16:7). Centuries later, he would remind us again through Paul, “While bodily training is of some value, godliness is of value in every way, as it holds promise for the present life and also for the life to come” (1 Timothy 4:8).
Along with the body, sports culture obsesses over here-and-now victory and applause. Christian athletes fight an uphill battle to satisfy themselves in God alone, to pursue his glory alone, to seek his kingdom alone, and to believe his word above every other: “Whoever would be great among you must be your servant, and whoever would be first among you must be your slave” (Matthew 20:26–27).
Grasping the Unseen
While sports can distract us from spiritual realities, they can also expose them. Throughout his letters, Paul uses athletic imagery to illuminate unseen, eternal truths (2 Corinthians 4:18).
For example, in 1 Corinthians 9:24 Paul asks, “Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one receives the prize? So run that you may obtain it [that is, eternal life].” When I read passages like this, I thank God for athletic competition. In the golden age of participation certificates and star-shaped stickers, we hear time and again that there’s no such thing as not reaching our potential. There are no losers, only people doing their best to be themselves (which, of course, they’ll succeed at being, what with no external standard to reach).
But as Paul reminds us, the Christian life is not the free 5k we like to know about but never run. No, the Christian life is the Pikes Peak Ascent, the Boston Marathon, the Summer Olympics. Meaning: to finish, we must run. And not only run but train, disciplining ourselves “that by any means possible [we] may attain the resurrection from the dead” (Philippians 3:11). As J.C. Ryle puts it,
It would not be difficult to point out at least twenty-five or thirty distinct passages in the epistles where believers are plainly taught to use active personal exertion, and are addressed as responsible for doing energetically what Christ would have them do, and are not told to “yield themselves” up as passive agents and sit still, but to arise and work. A holy violence, a conflict, a warfare, a fight, a soldier’s life, a wrestling, are spoken of as characteristic of the true Christian. (Holiness, xxiii–xxiv)
To say with Paul, “I press on to make [eternal life] my own” (Philippians 3:12) doesn’t mean that eternal life is earned. This life is graciously given. Even still, that does not make it a given. Like the most serious of runners, Christians race heavenward — Bibles in our hands, prayer on our lips, church by our side — because we know that fervent, frequent Godward movement confirms that he has already obtained us: “I press on to make [eternal life] my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own.”
How remarkable that we might perceive grace and faith more clearly, simply because Paul reminds us “that in a race all the runners run, but only one receives the prize” (1 Corinthians 9:24). Some unseen things shimmer better when we sweat.
Competing Ends
Yes, we do well to look and move heavenward through our beloved tracks and fields. But as we do, we should again remember that athletics may actively hinder our ability to live like Christians. The players we watch aren’t pastors. Many coaches we play for don’t pray. By and large, sports culture is thoroughly, proudly, and profitably secular.
Which means it operates under its own moral code: win, usually at any cost. As believers who play or follow sports, we can struggle to resist the pressure to prioritize first place above honoring God and his word.
Imagine it’s the last five minutes of a tie game. Whether playing or watching, most unbelieving coaches, teammates, and fans want you to do or say whatever you can to get the win — even if it means disobeying God. We know he not only commands slowness to anger and self-control, but he also commends them as more rewarding than strength and success (Proverbs 16:32). Still, there’s a game on the line. So, from overly aggressive fouls to jeering at refs, as long as the behavior helps to take the win by might, your team and fans will likely applaud. After all, you’re just being competitive.
Oh, what Christians might communicate instead. What if we walked away without retaliating, faced defeat with calm and even contentment, and experienced sports as a gift meant to reveal the Giver? In doing so, we would express how incomparably pleasing it is to belong to God, not the game.
At their best, sports are an exercise in worship and witness. We have only to believe that Jesus is worthy in every loss and worth more than every victory (Philippians 3:8), and then train and play and watch and cheer like it.
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Uncommon Wife of Revival: The Rugged Joy of Sarah Edwards (1710–1758)
“The Spirit of God began extraordinarily to set in. Revival grew, and souls did as it were come by floods to Christ” (Works, 1:348). That is how Jonathan Edwards (1703–1758) described the remarkable progress of the gospel in Northampton in 1734, one local manifestation of what would come to be known as the First Great Awakening.
Many were overjoyed at what they regarded as a glorious work of God. Others were horrified, regarding it all as dangerous fanaticism. When Edwards later set out to analyze the true and the false in revival, the experience of his own wife, Sarah, provided him with a remarkable case study of the genuine work of the Spirit.
Although the first part of Sarah’s life appeared outwardly peaceful, her inner life was sometimes troubled. Later in life, however, she endured a series of crises, through which she remained serene. The most significant turning point came in 1742, when she was given a fresh appreciation of “the breadth and length and height and depth” of Christ’s love (Ephesians 3:18).
Desiring God
From a young age, Sarah enjoyed an awareness of the beauty and glory of God. Famously, when she was just 13, Jonathan (aged 20) wrote a delightful eulogy to her piety and lovely character. By 16, Sarah was powerfully aware of her own sin, and trusted God for mercy. She valued “nearness to Christ as the creature’s greatest happiness,” and she could say, “My soul thirsted for him, so that death meant nothing to me, that I might be with him; for he was altogether lovely” (quoted in Haykin, “Nearness to Christ the Creature’s Greatest Happiness”).
Seventeen-year-old Sarah married Jonathan in 1727 and moved to Northampton. Jonathan was assisting his grandfather Solomon Stoddard (1643–1729), who had ministered at the church there since 1669. When Stoddard died two years later, Jonathan succeeded him as sole minister.
A baby girl was born to Sarah and Jonathan in 1728, the first of eleven children. Visitors to their home testified to the warmth and love of their family life. Meanwhile, Sarah continued to know God’s smile. By 1735, she had gone through labor four times (then immensely risky), but she wrote,
During a time of great affliction, I could often say: “Whom have I in heaven but thee? And there is none on earth that I desire beside thee. My soul thirsteth for God, for the living God.” (“Nearness to Christ”)
Up to the age of 31, Sarah’s life was reasonably smooth. She did experience mood swings and depression, no doubt associated in part with the rigors of childbearing. She depended a lot on the approval of her husband. She was sometimes overprotective of his reputation, and feared the bad opinion of the townspeople. At times she was beset with anxiety. Even still, she continued to know and rejoice in God. With the psalmist, she desired ever closer fellowship with God (Psalm 27:4), and longed for greater holiness (Psalm 139:23–24).
Delighting in God
Jonathan had begun his ministry at a time when most people in Northampton attended church, but many were nominal Christians. Most of the youth were unconverted, with low moral standards.
The sudden death of one young man in 1734, however, shook the community. At the funeral, Jonathan preached on Psalm 90:5–6, challenging all to prepare for death and judgment. Small prayer groups sprang up. By early 1735, many were convicted of sin, repented, and found assurance of forgiveness. Jonathan reported an average of thirty conversions a week over a five- to six-week period (Jonathan Edwards: A New Biography, 117). Six months later, three hundred people were converted.
Throughout the next year, revival continued in Northampton and in many other communities in New England, as well as in Britain and beyond. When George Whitefield (1714–1770) visited New England in 1740, he preached to crowds of thousands. At such times of revival, God draws near in a special and widespread way: unbelievers are convicted and converted, and believers are given a deeper awareness of spiritual reality.
Heaven Below
While Jonathan was preaching away from home early in 1742, there was further revival in Northampton. Between January 19 and February 11, Sarah was so overwhelmed with assurance of the love of God that some wondered whether she would survive until her husband’s return. She did, and was able in due course to give him a precise account of what she had experienced during that time.
In those days, Sarah had felt crushed by awareness of her own indwelling sin, but then overjoyed by the glory of salvation. She rejoiced in the ministry of each person of the Holy Trinity. Truths she had enjoyed for many years brought her almost unbearably intense happiness. Her delight in God was so overpowering it was as if she were already experiencing the joy of heaven.
I never before, for so long a time together, enjoyed so much of the light, and rest and sweetness of heaven in my soul. . . . I continued in a constant, clear, and lively sense of the heavenly sweetness of Christ’s love, of his nearness to me, and of my dearness to him. (Works, 1:lxv)
‘Your Will Be Done’
Along with that personal sense of God’s love, she felt intense love and compassion for others. She no longer feared the ill-will of the town or the disapproval of her husband. Nor did she care whether it was her husband or another preacher who was more effective in ministry.
“The priority was that God should be glorified. If that involved suffering, so be it. His glory was all in all.”
She envisaged the worst scenarios that could possibly befall. What if the townsfolk turned on her and she was thrown out into the wilderness in the midst of winter? What if her husband turned against her? Or if she had to die for Christ? (And what about living her daily routine uncomplainingly, and facing the risks and traumas of repeated childbirth?) God loved her, so Sarah could trust him. Whatever happened, her response would be “Your will be done” and “Amen, Lord Jesus!”
The priority was that God should be glorified. If that involved suffering, so be it. His glory was all in all.
Depending on God
The reality of Sarah’s “resignation of all to God” would soon be tested as she faced a series of crises: war, poverty, rejection, and multiple bereavements.
When England and France declared war in 1744, inhabitants of towns such as Northampton became targets of attack. (French Canadians paid allies among the North American Indians to kill English settlers.) The town was on constant alert. Several were killed. Jonathan and Sarah stayed calm, remaining there to minister. Nevertheless, war resulted in economic hardship. Parishioners struggled to feed themselves, and the Edwardses’ salary often went unpaid. Sarah had to submit detailed household budgets to the church and engage in every conceivable economy.
Inglorious End
Meanwhile, by 1744, Jonathan had become convinced that only believers should take communion — a position that caused uproar. Those baptized as infants expected to be able to take communion, whether or not they had professed faith. At the same time, a controversial case of church discipline also caused friction. Factions in the church, including some of Jonathan’s own relatives, turned against their pastor. The church eventually dismissed Jonathan in June 1750, leaving the family without financial support. Yet Jonathan and Sarah remained free of bitterness, shut up to the opinion of all but God. Later on, a relative admitted that he had spread numerous untrue slanders about them, but they never demanded public vindication.
In 1751, Jonathan accepted a call to minister to a remote mission station at Stockbridge. The family relocated to the frontier, where conditions were harsh compared to Northampton. The settlement was made up of twelve English families, as well as two different groups of North American Indians. Tensions abounded, however, and all lived in fear because of ongoing war between the English and the French, with the Indians caught in between. Each day, news came in of horrible atrocities. Sarah had to provide meals for streams of refugees leaving the interior, as well as for soldiers billeted with them. Friends and family begged the Edwardses to leave, but Jonathan and Sarah felt they were safer in the path of their calling than out of it.
The Edwardses had great vision for the North American Indians, even sending their 9-year-old son off to a remote place with a missionary in order to learn another Indian language. Jonathan commented in a letter, “The Indians seem much pleased with my family, especially my wife” (Jonathan Edwards: A Life, 391).
Death upon Death
Worst of all, however, were the series of bereavements the Edwards family endured from the late 1740s on. Jerusha Edwards, Jonathan’s and Sarah’s second-oldest daughter, died in 1748 at the age of 17. She had offered to care for a visiting missionary, David Brainerd, as he died of tuberculosis, but she too succumbed to the disease. Exceptionally godly, Jerusha had been regarded as the “flower of the family.” But her parents submitted to God’s sovereignty, knowing their daughter was with her Lord.
In 1752, 20-year-old Esther married Aaron Burr, the 36-year-old president of New Jersey College at Princeton. They soon had two children — the youngest, Aaron Jr., would famously kill Alexander Hamilton in a duel in 1804, while U.S. Vice President — but Aaron Sr. died at just 41 years old in 1757. Jonathan then was invited to take his place as President of the New Jersey College. He moved down to Princeton ahead of the family.
Soon after taking up the post, in March 1758, Jonathan died after a smallpox vaccination. While dying, he sent word to Sarah, thanking God for the “uncommon union” that they had enjoyed, and looking to the eternity that lay before them in Christ. When Sarah received the terrible news of his untimely death, she responded with towering faith:
The Lord has done it: He has made me adore his goodness that we had him [Jonathan] so long. But my God lives and he has my heart. (Works, 1:clxxix)
She soon received further terrible news. Esther had died a few days after her father. Sarah immediately left her own children and traveled down to Princeton to collect her two orphaned grandchildren. On the way home, she herself fell critically ill and died on October 2, 1758, at age 48.
Throughout this tragic series of events, and in her final hours, Sarah still could testify,
Neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 8:38–39)
Desiring God’s Glory in all the Earth
From an early age, Sarah Edwards had delighted in God. That delight was intensified during revival, it endured through suffering, and she died knowing that death would be her entry to unbroken delight in him. Her delight in God gave her a passion that he be glorified. She knew that God is worthy of the praise of every person on earth (Psalm 148), and she could not bear to think of him not receiving his due:
I felt such a disposition to rejoice in God, that I wished to have the world join me in praising him. I was ready to wonder how the world of mankind could lie and sleep when there was such a God to praise! (Works, 1:lxvii)
“Sarah longed for revival, not only in her own life, in her own family, or in Northampton, but throughout the earth.”
Sarah longed for revival, not only in her own life, in her own family, or in Northampton, but throughout the earth. The Edwardses’ ambitions and prayers went far beyond personal, family, or parochial concerns — they were certain of the ultimate and cosmic triumph of Christ. And so, Jonathan urged all believers to unite in prayer for global evangelization and revival.
As we love God more, and enjoy his love, we too long for him to be honored by all, and for his glory to fill the earth. We too are to pray and work for revival — in our own experience, our family, our church, our nation, and the world:
Blessed be his glorious name forever; may the whole earth be filled with his glory!Amen and Amen! (Psalm 72:19)