God & Country

The Great Awakening

/ Bob / Leave a comment

The Great Awakening was a revival that swept through the American colonies roughly from the 1730’s through the 1760’s. While it brought thousands of new souls into the Kingdom of God, it also altered the religious, social, and political landscape of Colonial America.

At its core, the movement shifted the focus of faith away from rigid church doctrine, formal rituals, and intellectualism, placing it instead on personal submission to the Sovereign God and a felt experience of salvation, often referred to as being “born again”.

Driven by orators like Jonathan Edwards and George Whitefield,

the Awakening preaching emphasized individual sinfulness and

the necessity of personal repentance leading to conversion.

By breaking down traditional denominational barriers and challenging the authority of established clergy, the Great Awakening fostered a unique sense of shared inter-colonial identity and a democratic spirit. It taught ordinary individuals that they had the spiritual authority to make their own religious choices—an egalitarian mindset that helped pave the philosophical way for the American Revolution.

This Bible study was presented to the Agape Life Bible Study Class of the First Baptist Church in Brenham, Texas, on Sunday, June 14, 2026. It is part of a series called From Reverence to Revival to Revolution: The Influence of Christianity and the Great Awakening on the Founding of The United States of America. Handouts with class presentation content can be requested at: fromthebackporchintexas@gmail.com .

Handouts are also available at: fromthebackporch.org .


Website – FromTheBackPorch.org
Facebook – From the Back Porch in Texas

YouTube – youtube.com/@fromthebackporch

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TikTok – tiktok.com/@fromthebackporchintexas
Email – fromthebackporchintexas@gmail.com

Class Notes – The Great Awakening – 06.14.2026Download

From Revelry to Rapaciousness to Reason to Revival

/ Bob / Leave a comment

“Religion brought forth Prosperity, and the daughter destroyed the mother.” (Cotton Mather – 1702) The Colonies were prospering. They saw it as the blessings of God and well they should have. However, the more prosperous they became, the more they wanted more. Their rapacious desires – their uncontrollable materialistic greed – caused the colonists to push their faith aside in the pursuit of wealth. Mather was right. And he’s still right.

The Jeremiad preachers addressed the sinful ways of the colonists. They spoke of God’s coming judgment in the face of their sinful ways. They highlighted specific sins in their sermons. They called our revelers and drunkards and lambasted families for not maintaining Godly discipline. In short, they gave their congregants a heavy dose of the seriousness of sin.

The Age of Reason was in fine form and offered the colonists a “reasonable” solution. The Age of Enlightenment brought on a shift from the revelation of God to the reasoning of man. There arose a focus on the natural rights of mankind with little regard for the God Who gave them those rights. Science became the answer to life’s problems.

Once again, Satan’s game plan for the destruction of mankind had worked – the lust of the flesh – revelry; the lust of the eyes – rapaciousness; and the pride of life – reason. (1 John 2:16)

Jonathan Edwards addressed these issues in the Northampton Church. He was a Jeremiad Preacher who could bring forth the fear of God and the fires of hell. However, with the seriousness of sin he also brought forth the supply of grace offered freely through the love and blood of Jesus. Furthermore, as one who had read John Locke and understood the Age of Reason, he led people to see the true Reason found in the Gospel message and the reasonableness of the Christian faith.

Revival came to Northampton. Edwards wrote about the revival that swept through the community and surrounding areas in a book entitled “A Faithful Narrative of the Surprizing Work of God.” This book became the blueprint for revival used by George Whitefield and Charles Wesly and countless others who ushered in The Great Awakening.

This Bible study was presented to the Agape Life Bible Study Class of the First Baptist Church in Brenham, Texas, on Sunday, June 7, 2026. It is part of a series called From Reverence to Revival to Revolution: The Influence of Christianity and the Great Awakening on the Founding of The United States of America. Handouts with class presentation content can be requested at: fromthebackporchintexas@gmail.com .

Handouts are also available at: fromthebackporch.org .


Website – FromTheBackPorch.org
Facebook – From the Back Porch in Texas

YouTube – youtube.com/@fromthebackporch

X – FromtheBackPorch@nationalfast

TikTok – tiktok.com/@fromthebackporchintexas
Email – fromthebackporchintexas@gmail.com

Class Notes – From Revelry & Rapaciousness & Reason to Revival – 06.07.2026Download

The Slow Fade of Faith

/ Bob

The Puritans, and especially the separatist Pilgrims, came to the New World to establish a home where they could fully live out their faith in God. Through struggles of every sort they did just that. Alas, their children – the next generation – did not share in their zeal for Holiness. Thus began a slow fade of faith that would lead the colonies into a period of materialism and moral decay.

It’s not unlike our culture today. We face threats to our very existence as the Pilgrims did – remember September 11, 2001? The Pilgrims bound themselves together in a bond of shared faith in God. So did we. But as time passed and the threat faded, so did our commitment to the God Who brought us through that time.

There are many similarities to the moral decadence of late 17th and early 18th Centuries and our 21st Century moral depravity. It was a very self-centered environment much like our own and the leaders of the church spoke out about the sins being committed, and then turned around and offered what today could be called a watered-down faith – a cheap grace if you will. If ever there was a time ripe for a revival of God’s people it was in the early 1700’s. If ever there was a time ripe for a revival of God’s people it IS in the early 2000’s.

This Bible study was presented to the Agape Life Bible Study Class of the First Baptist Church in Brenham, Texas, on Sunday, May 24, 2026. It is part of a series called From Reverence to Revival to Revolution: The Influence of Christianity and the Great Awakening on the Founding of The United States of America. Handouts with class presentation content can be requested at: fromthebackporchintexas@gmail.com .

Handouts are also available at: fromthebackporch.org .


Website – FromTheBackPorch.org
Facebook – From the Back Porch in Texas

YouTube – youtube.com/@fromthebackporch

X – FromtheBackPorch@nationalfast

TikTok – tiktok.com/@fromthebackporchintexas
Email – fromthebackporchintexas@gmail.com

From Reverence to Revival to Revolution – 1. Coming to America

/ Bob

Coming to America

For God, Gold, and Glory! God’s first directive to mankind was to “be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it.” (Genesis 1:28a)  Those who came to the New World had a variety of reasons for doing so, but those whose hearts were turned toward God also came to honor that first directive as well as the Great Commission of our Lord to “go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you.”  (Matthew 28:19-20a)

Columbus – The Pilgrims – The Puritans – These all came to the New World with the belief that they were doing the Will of God. However, even those who came for other reasons – gold, land, glory, conquests, future profits, and future military strongholds – unwittingly were doing what God wanted them to do. “For dominion belongs to the Lord and he rules over the nations.” (Psalm 22:28) “He makes nations great, and destroys them; he enlarges nations, and disperses them.” (Job 12:23)

Even as Pope Nicholas V sought out new territory after loosing land to the Islamic forces in the Middle Ages, he and later popes issued Papal Bulls to encourage the conquest of foreign lands in the name of the church. However, what the Pope meant for the good of the church God meant for the good of His Kingdom. And His Kingdom spread all across what we now call North and South America.

They came to America!

This Bible study was presented to the Agape Life Bible Study Class of the First Baptist Church in Brenham, Texas, on 2 consecutive Sundays, May 10 &17, 2026. It is part of a series called From Reverence to Revival to Revolution: The Influence of Christianity and the Great Awakening on the Founding of The United States of America. Handouts with class presentation content can be requested at: fromthebackporchintexas@gmail.com .

Handouts are also available at: fromthebackporch.org .


Website – FromTheBackPorch.org
Facebook – From the Back Porch in Texas

YouTube – youtube.com/@fromthebackporch

X – FromtheBackPorch@nationalfast

TikTok – tiktok.com/@fromthebackporchintexas
Email – fromthebackporchintexas@gmail.com

Class Notes – Coming to America – 05.10.2026 & 05.17.2026Download

Trust God – Not Those Who Say Trust Me

/ Bob

As U.S. citizens we must be politically active even if that only means availing ourselves of the privilege and responsibility to vote.  However, thinking that our ultimate hope lies in the hands of any politician or political party is simply foolish. Vote, campaign, and/or contribute to the candidate or party of your choice, but know that God is a faithful fountain of hope no matter what a politician or governmental official says or does.

Psalm 146:3 – Do not put your trust in princes, in human beings, who cannot save.

Jeremiah 17:5 – Cursed is the one who trusts in man, who draws strength from mere flesh and whose heart turns away from the Lord.

Isaiah 2:22 – Stop trusting in mere humans, who have but a breath in their nostrils. Why hold them in esteem?

Psalm 118:8-9 – It is better to take refuge in the Lord than to trust in humans. it is better to take refuge in the Lord than to trust in princes.

Romans 13:1 – For all authority comes from God, and those in positions of authority have been placed there by God.

Abraham Lincoln’s Call to Fasting and Prayer

/ Bob

On March 30, 1863, as our nation was in the throes of the Civil War, President Lincoln issued this prolamation asking the American people to seek the Lord.

By the President of the United States of America.

A Proclamation.

Whereas, the Senate of the United States, devoutly recognizing the Supreme Authority and just Government of Almighty God, in all the affairs of men and of nations, has, by a resolution, requested the President to designate and set apart a day for National prayer and humiliation.

And whereas it is the duty of nations as well as of men, to own their dependence upon the overruling power of God, to confess their sins and transgressions, in humble sorrow, yet with assured hope that genuine repentance will lead to mercy and pardon; and to recognize the sublime truth, announced in the Holy Scriptures and proven by all history, that those nations only are blessed whose God is the Lord.

And, insomuch as we know that, by His divine law, nations like individuals are subjected to punishments and chastisements in this world, may we not justly fear that the awful calamity of civil war, which now desolates the land, may be but a punishment, inflicted upon us, for our presumptuous sins, to the needful end of our national reformation as a whole People? We have been the recipients of the choicest bounties of Heaven. We have been preserved, these many years, in peace and prosperity. We have grown in numbers, wealth and power, as no other nation has ever grown. But we have forgotten God. We have forgotten the gracious hand which preserved us in peace, and multiplied and enriched and strengthened us; and we have vainly imagined, in the deceitfulness of our hearts, that all these blessings were produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own. Intoxicated with unbroken success, we have become too self-sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving grace, too proud to pray to the God that made us!

It behooves us then, to humble ourselves before the offended Power, to confess our national sins, and to pray for clemency and forgiveness.

Now, therefore, in compliance with the request, and fully concurring in the views of the Senate, I do, by this my proclamation, designate and set apart Thursday, the 30th. day of April, 1863, as a day of national humiliation, fasting and prayer. And I do hereby request all the People to abstain, on that day, from their ordinary secular pursuits, and to unite, at their several places of public worship and their respective homes, in keeping the day holy to the Lord, and devoted to the humble discharge of the religious duties proper to that solemn occasion.

All this being done, in sincerity and truth, let us then rest humbly in the hope authorized by the Divine teachings, that the united cry of the Nation will be heard on high, and answered with blessings, no less than the pardon of our national sins, and the restoration of our now divided and suffering Country, to its former happy condition of unity and peace.

In witness whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed.

Done at the City of Washington, this thirtieth day of March, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, and of the Independence of the United States the eighty seventh.

By the President: Abraham Lincoln
William H. Seward, Secretary of State.