Second Great Awakening
Hebrews 11.16
A Better Country
Second Great Awakening
• The Second Great Awakening grew out of the
first, and occurred about 100 years later.
• It was not a single movement like the First
Great Awakening, which has a clear beginning
in 1732, the Second Great Awakening seems
to have caught fire at different times in
different parts of the country.
• It was also different in focus.
Second Great Awakening
• The Second Great Awakening is also known as
the Methodist Revival Awakening, because
Methodist Churches led the way– with a Lot of
Baptists involved in the States.
– James McGready of Kentucky is considered to be
the founder of this revival. He preached in
Kentucky from 1800-1812.
– He used tents to hold revival services– which
often saw very emotional conversion experiences.
Second Great Awakening
• McGready preached of a better country– of a
shining city. But he had a clear message of
sinfulness: “We shall prove that Jesus is the
Christ, from the testimony of scripture
prophecies that expressly received their
accomplishment in Him. . . . The most daring
infidel cannot produce a single instance where
the veracity of its prophecies has failed”
• McGready attacked with vitriol the ideas of
deists.
Second Great Awakening
• My favorite line from McGready:
– We may add the immortal Washington, the patriot
and sage, who, aided by the justness of his cause,
succeeded in rescuing an infant nation from the
yoke of oppression and in establishing its
freedom. . . But [this great man] were obliged to
triumph at the expense of the blood of
multitudes. Jesus conquered by his own death.
(1801)
Second Great Awakening
• McGready was a powerful preacher who
focused on sin and repentance. He was
followed by Charles Finney.
– Finney was more of an intellectual
– He was attacking Deism and Rationalism.
– He wanted to reclaim Science and logic for its true
purpose– calling people to repent.
– He was a postmillennialist, as many of the 2nd
Great Awakening were.
Second Great Awakening
• Charles Finney believed in Sin
– And no sinner can avoid this fearful result, if he will
persist in sinning. Exist he must--he cannot prevent it-cannot put an end to his existence--for death only
changes its place and mode--does not bring it to an
end. Live, then, each sinner must, and if he will go on
in sin, he must go on augmenting his guilt and
consequent ruin.
– But he also believed that Reason was a gift of God:
“Reason is another gift of providence--a precious
blessing if devoted to God--if used legitimately and
faithfully according to its nature and design;”
Second Great Awakening
• Finney’s message was clear:
– Let it not be understood that this death is a state
of perfect unconsciousness--by no means; nor is it
a state in which all power of voluntary action is
destroyed or even suspended; but it is a state in
which no right moral action takes place. It is death
in trespasses and sins.
• Finney and McGready called people to a
personal repentance. Unlike the First
Awakening, which called the Church to act,
this one called Sinners.
Second Great Awakening
• The last preacher we will discuss is Barton
Stone, also of Kentucky.
– Stone was a Presbyterian who felt his faith
challenged by the work of the Methodists and
Baptists. He was a true tent meeting Preacher,
and attracted 12,000 in Lexington.
– He was not an intellectual preacher, but he was
elegant. He was very much a product of his
church– his sermons tended to take a single verse
and develop an idea.
Second Great Awakening
• Barton Stone was a Presbyterian, but he was also
one of the powerful leaders of the Second
Awakening:
– When in heart we believe and obey the gospel, God
gives us his holy, quickening spirit; he gives us
salvation, and eternal life--In this spirit we feel a
tender concern for sinners, and are led to plead with
them, and pray for them. They see our good works,
and from conviction are led to glorify God--they see
the light of Zion, and flow to it--they see the union of
christians, and are by this means led to believe in
Jesus unto salvation and eternal life. God has ordained
that the unbelieving world are to be saved by the
means of this truth, shining in his church on earth.
Second Great Awakening
• The Second Great Awakening called the
Church to take on serious social problems.
– The American Bible Society began printing and
distributing Bibles throughout the States.
– Mission organizations began with a focus on far
off lands– Wisconsin.
– Mission organizations grew and began to send
missionaries to China and Africa.
– Tract societies sprang up.
Second Great Awakening
• However, this awakening fell away from its
faith and became a social reform movement.
– The Social Gospel grows out of this.
– Temperance Societies, originally Church in nature,
became very political.
– Abolitionism, which was also a Church movement,
became political. Preachers such as Henry Ward
Beecher took the abolitionist cause into violence.
– Beecher’s Bibles became a byword for rebellion.
Second Great Awakening
• Consequences of this movement
– Baptists became a powerful denomination.
– Biblical Apologetics became very important.
– Postmillennialism dominated public policy.
– New Denominations like the Seventh-Day
Adventists and Mormons arose.
– Tent Meetings came into existence.
– The King James replaces Geneva– and the
Apocrypha is no longer part of Protestantism.
– Baptists officially become Premillennial.
Second Great Awakening
• James McGready Sermons found here.
• Charles Finney Sermons can be found here.
• Timeline and eyewitness accounts can be
found here.