About the Book
"The 3 Battle Grounds" by Frances Frangipane discusses the three main areas where spiritual warfare takes place: the mind, the church, and the heavenly places. The book offers insights and practical strategies for believers to engage in spiritual battle and overcome the enemy in these areas. It emphasizes the importance of surrendering to God, renewing the mind, and walking in unity with other believers to experience victory in spiritual warfare.
David Brainerd
Born to a farming family in Haddam, Connecticut, Brainerd soon turned his aspirations to the clergy and a life of study. The early death of his parents, combined with a naturally melancholy personality, caused him to be morose and to fixate on the brevity of life, so that his religious life was characterized by prolonged depressions punctuated by ecstatic experiences of God. He began to study for the ministry at Yale College in 1739. During his first year he showed signs of the tuberculosis that was to end his life prematurely. During the following year, the New Light preaching of George Whitefield and other itinerants such as Gilbert Tennent and James Davenport gained many adherents at the college, including Brainerd, and he became involved in a separate church founded by students. In November 1741 he was reported as saying that one of the local ministers who was a college tutor had “no more grace than a chair.” Determined to snuff out the New Light among the students, the Yale Corporation, led by its rector, Thomas Clap, expelled Brainerd for refusing to make a public confession.
Officially barred from the ministry, Brainerd nonetheless became an itinerant preacher, filling pulpits of New Light sympathizers throughout New England and New York. In the process he gained the admiration of many clergymen, including Jonathan Dickinson, a Presbyterian minister of New Jersey and commissioner of the Society in Scotland for Propagating Christian Knowledge. Dickinson in 1742 first proposed that Brainerd become a missionary. To prepare himself, in 1743 Brainerd went to work with John Sargeant, missionary to the Stockbridge Indians. He was ordained by the Presbytery of New York in 1744. From 1743 to 1747 he ministered to the Indians in western Massachusetts, eastern New York, the Lehigh region of Pennsylvania, and central New Jersey. At the New Jersey Bethel mission (near Cranbury), he achieved his most notable successes. Out of his experiences here came the publication of two installments of his journals that described both the revivals among the Delaware Indians and his own spiritual turmoil and exultation.
Brainerd preaching to the Indians for all of his zeal, however, Brainerd’s constitution could not stand up to the hardships of wilderness living. In April 1747, seriously weakened by tuberculosis, he left New Jersey for the home of his friend Jonathan Edwards in Northampton, Massachusetts, where he died in October.
In 1749 Edwards published An Account of the Life of the Late Reverend Mr. David Brainerd, drawn from Brainerd’s extensive diaries and supplemented by Edwards’s own commentary. Edwards sought to portray Brainerd as a model of Christian saintliness who manifested his faith in good works and self-sacrifice, expurgating many passages that recorded Brainerd’s depressions and enthusiasms. Over the centuries, this work has achieved international fame, has gone through countless printings, and has inspired many missionaries in pursuing their call.
Minkema, Kenneth P., “Brainerd, David,” in Biographical Dictionary of Christian Missions, ed. Gerald H. Anderson (New York: Macmillan Reference USA, 1998), 84-5.
This article is reprinted from Biographical Dictionary of Christian Missions, Macmillan Reference USA, copyright © 1998 Gerald H. Anderson, by permission of Macmillan Reference USA, New York, NY. All rights reserved.
Today Is Just in Time
His circumstances were a nightmare. Not only did he live in the land of whoredom, standing on the brink of national judgment, but his job seemed more like a sick joke than a divine commission. Go marry a prostitute and get her pregnant, God told Hosea, because I have a message to send my sinful people (Hosea 1:2). No prophet of Israel received convenient instructions, but this was about as rough as it ever got. Not to mention, all this drama — this real-life theater — was for a faithless people. Israel had it good from God, until they coopted his blessing to serve Baal, doubling down their opulence, partying hard, and forgetting all about the One who had called them out of slavery. The relationship between ancient Israel’s sin and their forgetfulness is not ironic. If sin makes people stupid (and it does), spiritual adultery makes us oblivious: She did not know that it was I who gave her the grain, the wine, and the oil, and who lavished on her silver and gold, which they used for Baal. . . . [Israel] went after her lovers and forget me, declares the Lord. (Hosea 2:8; 4:6, 10–12) They were filled, and their heart was lifted up; therefore they forgot me. (Hosea 13:6) I took them up by their arms, but they did not know that I healed them. (Hosea 11:3) Grace on the Edge Now the time had come to reap God’s wrath — hence the prophetic work of Hosea. “I will punish them for their ways and repay them for their deeds” (Hosea 4:9). The charges had piled up. Judgment was breathing down their necks. Any day now, we’d be saying if we were there, and things are about to blow. Wholesale captivity is right around the corner, and before that, an invading Assyrian army. But then there’s a call to repentance. The context is so pervasively negative, commentators have debated whether it’s serious or sarcasm. Come, let us return to the Lᴏʀᴅ; for he has torn us, that he may heal us; he has struck us down, and he will bind us up. After two days he will revive us; on the third day he will raise us up, that we may live before him. Let us know; let us press on to know the Lᴏʀᴅ; his going out is sure as the dawn; he will come to us as the showers, as the spring rains that water the earth. (Hosea 6:1–3) Hosea is for real. He means it. This book is laced with surprising words of grace; even in the midst of accusation, mercy is busting at the seams (Hosea 2:14–23; 3:1–5; 10:12; 11:1–12; 12:9; 14:1–9). In the rubble of Israel’s wickedness, in the aftermath of their apostasy, the plea still goes forth: Let us know him; Let us press on to know the Lord. Mighty in His Mercy It is a plea for us as much as for them. Know the Lord, Hosea says. Even in their mess, even in their shambled condition, when the icky-ness of their past sin is corroding the present, Hosea holds out the invitation: Today, would you turn? Will you press on to know him now? There is a theological fact to grasp here — or perhaps more, a divine emotion to feel. Just when all we can imagine is stern, hard, cold; there is warmth, eyes of hope, hands held forth. God is not like us, after all. Maybe one shot and we’re done. Maybe a few more here and there, depending on our mood, differing measures of grace, or various personalities. But not with God. How can I give you up, O Ephraim? How can I hand you over, O Israel? . . . My heart recoils within me; my compassion grows warm and tender. I will not execute my burning anger; I will not again destroy Ephraim; for I am God and not a man, the Holy One in your midst, and I will not come in wrath. (Hosea 11:8–9) As he told Moses so many years before, God tells us again: he is holy by his mercy — and it is always available to his people if they would but turn and trust him. Turning Today Which means, no matter what your yesterday looked like, the invitation is open still. Today is just in time. Like Puddleglum told Eustace and Jill, after they had muffled their obedience, while they were clearly frustrated, feeling like idiots, assuming they’d ruined everything, “Aslan’s instructions always work: there are no exceptions. But how to do it now — that’s another matter” (Silver Chair, 121). Stop for a moment, and think. It does not matter what happened yesterday, or last year, or that one time back then. What matters is this moment, now, when the mercy of God in Jesus is extended to you. All is not calloused. Remember, Jesus died in your place and took the wrath that belongs to you, if you would but trust him. As sure as the sun comes up, as sure as it rains, God has promised mercy to his people when they repent (1 John 1:9; 2 Chronicles 7:14). God’s mercy is always available to his people if they would but turn and trust him. Whatever wreck your life might be, however nightmarish your circumstances seem, Jesus is ready to embrace you. His righteousness is ready to clothe you. The mighty wave of his mercy is growing higher and higher, soon to crash over your soul, if you would just turn, if you would but seek him. Would you? Even in the midst of your mess, would you turn to him? Let us know; let us press on to know the Lord. Article by Jonathan Parnell Pastor, Minneapolis, Minnesota
