Lessons from Jonathan’s Edward’s Spiritual Journey, Part 9

What then can we learn about these spiritual experiences.

1. In our day, we only expect to have one or two spiritual experiences. The first is conversion and the second is referred to as either being filled with the Spirit or being baptized in the Spirit.
2. Only one of the experiences in the previous posts deals with a conversion event. None of the rest of them seem to fit into our modern conceptions of the baptism in the Holy Spirit.
3. In almost all of these experiences, the experience began with a truth from God's word. The emotions were a response to the truth.
4. When Jesus promised the coming of the Holy Spirit, He did so in reference to the Spirit's work of teaching the believer. John 14:26; 15:26; 16:7-11, 13-15.
5. In modern evangelical circles, there is not too much expectation of these kinds of dynamic experiences of the Holy Spirit in His teaching ministry.
6. In modern charismatic circles, there is an expectation that when the Spirit moves there will manifestations of tongues, healing, and deeply emotional experiences.
7. A better Scriptural perspective would be to expect people to have a deep, life changing revelation of the truth of God's word when the Holy Spirit moves.
8. As Christians we should be open to such experiences. In fact, we should even be praying for them. Jonathan Edwards explanation (see part 8) of these phenomena give us a Biblical basis for such expectations.
   
9. Our great safeguard from deception in these experiences is the connection between a deeper understanding of the truth and our emotional response to it. We should be suspicious of any deeply emotional experience that does not include a deeper understanding of some facet of Biblical revelation.