Sinners In The Hands Of An Angry God Order Printed Copy

Author: Brent Riggs
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About the Book

"Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God" is a classic sermon delivered by Jonathan Edwards in the 18th century, warning listeners of the consequences of sin and the wrath of God. The sermon uses vivid imagery and strong language to emphasize the urgent need for repentance and salvation. Edwards' powerful message serves as a reminder of the consequences of disobedience and the importance of seeking forgiveness.

Charles Colson

F Scott Fitzgerald once said: "There are no second acts in American lives." Charles Colson might have caused him to reconsider. In 1972, Colson, who has died aged 80, boasted to his colleagues in Richard Nixon's White House that he would "walk over my own grandmother" to get Nixon re-elected. His path led not over his grandmother, but through the Watergate scandal to prison, and then to a remarkable transformation into an evangelical Christian leader, bestselling writer and prison reformer. "Chuck" Colson called himself Nixon's "hatchet man", and it was in this role that he drew up the president's famous "enemies list". High on that list was Daniel Ellsberg, the US military analyst who leaked the Pentagon Papers to the New York Times in 1971. The papers were a series of secret reports commissioned by John F Kennedy's defence secretary Robert McNamara which contradicted the public policy statements of three American administrations over the Vietnam war. Nixon assigned Colson to discredit Ellsberg. Colson, armed with a budget of $250,000 from the Committee for the Re-Election of the President, had already hired his former college classmate E Howard Hunt to create the White House unit known as "the plumbers", as they were intended to stop embarrassing leaks. Hunt's team burgled the offices of Ellsberg's psychiatrist, and made plans to have Ellsberg beaten, while Colson leaked smears to the press. In early 1972, Colson got White House approval for a plan concocted by Hunt and G Gordon Liddy, another of the plumbers, to "gather intelligence" for the upcoming election. Hunt's burglars were caught by a sharp-eyed security guard inside the Democratic party's headquarters at the Watergate complex in Washington. An address book found on one of them led back to the White House, but the scandal failed to have an impact on the election, which Nixon won. Colson joked with Hunt that Watergate would be remembered as a brilliantly conceived escapade to "divert the Democrats' attention from the real issues, and therefore permit us to win a landslide we probably wouldn't have won otherwise". Without realising it, Colson had created the template which now dominates modern politics. But after the election, the Watergate investigations persisted. As Nixon's aides toppled one by one, Colson led the effort to smear those testifying, including another White House lawyer, John Dean, whose evidence against Nixon was particularly damning. Finally, Colson, too, resigned, in March 1973. A year later, he was indicted for his part in the cover-up. Facing an impeachment trial, Nixon resigned on 9 August 1974. Colson's religious conversion began while he was awaiting trial. Thomas Phillips, chairman of the defence contractor Raytheon, gave him a copy of CS Lewis's Mere Christianity, and he joined a congressional prayer group. When the 60 Minutes interviewer Mike Wallace challenged his sincerity, Colson decided to atone. Colson's lawyers negotiated a plea bargain of guilty to one count of obstruction of justice relating to the Ellsberg break-in. Sentenced in 1974 to one to three years, he served seven months in federal prison and was released in January 1975. Ellsberg himself said that he doubted the conversion, noting that Colson continued to deny more serious crimes. Colson was born in Boston. His father, Wendell, worked for the Securities and Exchange Commission. Colson attended Browne & Nichols, an elite school in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and then went to Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, on a naval reserve programme. After graduation, he served in the marine corps, then became an aide to the Massachusetts senator Leverett Saltonstall. Through Saltonstall, he met Nixon, then US vice-president, and in his own words, instantly became "a Nixon fanatic". After getting his law degree from George Washington University, he worked on Saltonstall's successful 1960 re-election campaign, before founding a law firm which became influential. In 1964 he wrote a memo to Nixon, who had lost the California gubernatorial election, outlining his plan to return Nixon to prominence; and in 1968 he joined Nixon's campaign. Nixon won the presidency in 1969 and appointed Colson his special counsel. In prison, Colson embraced born-again Christianity. In his biography Charles W Colson: A Life Redeemed (2005), the former Tory cabinet minister Jonathan Aitken says that Colson "transferred his huge drive, intellect, and maniacal energy from the service of Richard Nixon to the service of Jesus Christ". After prison, Colson wrote a bestselling memoir, Born Again (1976), which was filmed in 1978. He also founded a series of non-profit organisations, such as Prison Fellowship Ministries, which aimed to convert the convicted. Colson wrote more than 30 books, channelling the royalties into his ministries, to which he also donated the $1.1m Templeton prize, for promoting religion, which he won in 1993. In 2000, the Florida governor Jeb Bush reinstated Colson's voting rights (in that state, a convicted felon may not vote), saying: "I think it's time to move on. I know him, he's a great guy." In 2002 Colson joined fellow evangelicals in signing the Land Letter, urging President George W Bush to pursue a "just war" in Iraq. In 2008 he received the Presidential Citizens medal from Bush. Colson is survived by his second wife, Patricia, and by two sons, Wendell and Christian, and a daughter, Emily, from his first marriage, which ended in divorce. Charles Wendell Colson, political aide and prison reformer, born 16 October 1931; died 21 April 2012

waiting is worth the reward

In my early twenties, I was a newlywed, fresh-faced and full of hope. Matt and I were well traveled. We had seen almost every Baptist encampment in Texas thanks to his itinerant preaching career. (Don’t be jealous.) While there were countless gifts in that season, what marked that time of my life more than anything else was the pain of a dream deferred. I had a burning desire and dream to lead worship and write songs for worship. I was surrounded by gifted men and women doing such, but by God’s grace and design, I enjoyed the ministry only in small doses. I felt stifled. I felt inadequate. There was work to be done on my heart, and the Lord knew it. I just struggled to see it. I wrote the letter below to the woman I was, with the hope that it might be an encouragement to someone who is wrestling with a dream deferred. You aren’t alone. As I wrote this, I found myself encouraged as well. There are still places I desire to see God work, still dreams I would love to see fulfilled. Writing was a needed reminder that he is working even if it isn’t evident to us, and that he is the dream better than any other dream he puts in our hearts. I know it feels like you will always be frustrated — like God has somehow forgotten you or is acting only as your own personal cosmic killjoy. While you’re hitting barrier after barrier pursuing your heart’s dreams and desires, it seems like everyone around you is living their best life now. You are tired of wrestling. You just want something to break your way. But there’s something I want to tell you that you probably don’t want to hear right now. I promise, though, that you will be so glad if you hang on to these words in the years ahead. Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing. (James 1:2–4) Broken Dreams, Delayed Desires Yes, this “trial” is nothing compared to what others who worship Jesus are facing. You aren’t being persecuted for your faith; you aren’t destitute. Although you are living in the foreign wilderness of West Texas, you aren’t an exile or refugee. Nonetheless, this trial fits among the “various kinds,” and thus has the potential to do a tremendous work on your heart, if you will let it. On one level, it doesn’t feel like your faith is being tested. You still believe God is able to do anything; he’s just choosing not to do the things you want him to do for you. It feels like punishment. It feels unfair and confusing. You didn’t ask for these desires, but here they are. There’s nothing wrong or sinful about them. So what are you to do with them? In your mind, you assume there are two choices: either he gives you what you want the way you want it, or he takes the desires away. Beloved, there is so much more. Here’s what he’s doing. He is burning away the fluff. He is pulling out every false prop on which you’ve built your trust. He is frustrating your plans so that you turn your eyes from those around you and the lack you find inside you to see and love him for who he is and not merely what he can do for you. There is no more vital work than that. He loves you too much to give you what you want too soon. I know that’s easy for me to say when I know how this will all play out — when I know that you will be relieved that you didn’t get what you thought you wanted in the way you wanted it. The pressing and breaking of steadfastness doing its work is worth it. Portraits of Steadfastness So what does steadfastness look like? It looks like Jacob wrestling with the angel of the Lord (Genesis 32:24–32). He didn’t run away. He endured. He grappled with God even when it gave him a limp. He held on for dear life — for a blessing. He didn’t give up, and neither did God. Steadfastness looks like Job. He suffered horribly. He cried out desperately. He even lamented the day of his birth (Job 3:3). He questioned the Lord’s ways and was confronted with the terrifying beauty of God’s holiness. But he didn’t turn away. He was humbled in God’s presence. He laid his hand on his mouth and opened his ears to what God had to say. He rightly saw his scrawny, limited self in light of the magnificence of God. He repented. He prayed for his friends who just didn’t get what he was going through. God rebuked them, but he didn’t rebuke Job in the same way. He corrected and challenged him and eventually blessed him. Steadfastness looks like Hannah. All she wanted was a baby, but all she had was the love of her husband. She wept. She didn’t eat. Her heart was broken into pieces (1 Samuel 1:6–7). But she still went, year by year, with her husband to worship and sacrifice to the Lord in Shiloh. She poured her heart out to the Lord in her distress and through bitter tears. She didn’t hold back. She came honestly, though reverently, knowing that the Lord was the only one who could do something about her pain. And the Lord heard her prayer. He opened her womb and gave her a son that she gave back to him in return (1 Samuel 1:19–20). Perfect and Complete Do you remember when Jesus told his disciples, “I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now” (John 16:12)? The same is true of me to you; some things you learn only by growing older. But I will say this: Steadfastness looks like you falling forward into God’s grace — wrestling hard, crying out, and bringing the broken pieces of your heart to the Lord. It’s you looking to Jesus, the author and perfecter of your faith, who was perfectly steadfast through the most excruciating trial (Hebrews 12:2). He endured. He cried out. He became broken on your behalf so that his steadfastness could be your steadfastness. So when you’re in the midst of the hard work of steadfastness, remember that it won’t be pretty. And although you are being made “perfect and complete,” it’s not going to look perfect or feel complete. But who you are becoming is better than anything you now imagine — better than any desire or dream fulfilled before its time. You are becoming slowly but surely like Jesus. Be patient with yourself. You will need to read this letter again. And again and again. The process of becoming more steadfast won’t stop until you see your true heart’s desire face to face.