Saturday, May 25th,
'19
All
rights reserved © message by Kris Jackson
PLEASE
COME TO BOSTON
"By
the blessing of the upright the city is exalted..." (Proverbs 11:11)
Too much to see, too little time, Boston with
its Fenway Park and Red Sox, Harvard, old lighthouses, a cool violin band
called the "Pops", fresh lobster, clam chowder, Patriot football fever and the
harbor where a bunch of rowdies once held a "tea party". Boston is lyrical,
"You can sell your paintings on the sidewalk, by a café where I hope to be
workin' soon. Please come to Boston..." This is art, history, food and culture
with that Kennedy accent. You can jump in the time capsule and go back to
Plymouth Rock, 1620, or John Quincy Adams' birth or the Salem witch-hunts. Or
hit a few of Rachel Ray's little showcased eateries along the historic
sidewalks, or take a ferry ride to Cape Cod. It'll take a while to run out of
things to do. Please come to Boston.
And let's don't forget the spiritual element
for Boston was the epicenter of the colonial Great Awakening. Here
Whitefield thundered out the gospel to tens of thousands. Jonathan Edwards
artfully drew the word picture of sinners in the hands of an angry God.
Methodists, Baptists and Presbyterians preached "ye must be born again" and
packed out halls and houses so that in the first half of the 1700's eighty
percent of Bostonians regularly attended church. The revivalism back then had a
pivotal role leading up to the Revolution and founding of this great nation.
Three great waves of revival have hit this area, the early Puritan settlings,
the Great Awakening just mentioned and the Second Awakening a hundred years
later when fireballs like Charles Finney felt the pulse and scalded the nerve
of Boston.
But with all this culture came an intellectual
refinement that quietly shelved God in the antiquity chests of its Ivy League
colleges. Higher criticism criticized the Higher Power right out of town.
Consider this, Boston hosts 45 college campuses with as many students as the
total populations of cities like Tulsa or Orlando, yet some of the most liberal
faculties in America. Whence the vacuum? This area got too smart for its
britches, so my prayer again is, Lord, please come to Boston.
It is time for another awakening! Of course, a great
awakening would be a rude awakening for most. May the college students dust
off the cover of the Book on which Harvard was founded and rediscover our
sacred roots. Faith is quite alive here; we've discovered that in the retreat,
but there's a dampness breezing off the Atlantic that makes it hard to strike
revival matchsticks. Someone will soon. Another Finney, another Gilbert
Tennent, another Edwards is standing on go, waiting in the wings, like John the
Baptist waited for his "showing to Israel". The Holy Spirit has often surprised
men by stirring revival in the most unlikely places. Wesley emerged in England
at a time when you could "get drunk for a penny and dog-drunk for two". Think
it not odd that the Spirit would shake this bastion of liberalism as well
because the biggest vacuum can create the biggest hurricane. The biblical basis
for American law and jurisprudence came from Boston and Puritan thought. The
sculptures, museums and landmarks all testify to moral heritage. The only way
we can get it back is to invite the Founder back. Please come to Boston!
