“Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” is a renowned sermon presented by Jonathan Edwards in Enfield, Connecticut, on July 8, 1741. It portrays God’s anger and the dangerous state of sinners, stressing their reliance on God’s mercy to escape eternal condemnation. Edwards employs striking imagery and powerful language to alert his audience to the perils of sin and the necessity of repentance.

The delivery of this sermon acted as a trigger for the First Great Awakening. Similar to Edwards’ other writings, it intertwines graphic depictions of sinners’ perpetual suffering in the hellish flames with reflections on the world and references from the Bible. This is Edwards’ most well-known sermon, aptly reflecting his preaching method. It is extensively examined by both Christians and historians, offering insight into the theology of the First Great Awakening around 1730–1755.

This sermon is a profoundly impactful part of the Great Awakening, highlighting God’s wrath against nonbelievers after death and the terrifying reality of a fiery Hell. The main message is that God grants individuals the opportunity to confess their sins. According to Edwards, it is solely God’s will that prevents wicked individuals from being seized by the devil and his minions and thrown into Hell – “like greedy hungry lions that see their prey and anticipate having it, but are temporarily held back [by God’s hand].” Humanity’s efforts to avoid falling into the “bottomless gulf” due to the overwhelming “weight and pressure towards hell” are futile and no more effective than “a spider’s web would be in stopping a falling rock.” This grace from God has afforded humans the opportunity to believe in and rely on Christ. Throughout, Edwards employs diverse and striking imagery to convey this core theme.

Most of the sermon’s text consists of ten “considerations”:

1. God may cast wicked men into Hell at any given moment.
2. The wicked deserve to be cast into Hell. Divine justice does not prevent God from destroying the wicked at any moment.
3. The wicked, at this moment, suffer under God’s condemnation to Hell.
4. The wicked, on earth—at this very moment—suffer a sample of the torments of Hell. The wicked must not think, simply because they are not physically in Hell, that God (in whose hand the wicked now reside) is not—at this very moment—as angry with them as he is with those he is now tormenting in Hell, and who—at this very moment—feel and bear the fierceness of his wrath.
5. At any moment God shall permit him, Satan stands ready to fall upon the wicked and seize them as his own.
6. If it were not for God’s restraints, there are, in the souls of wicked men, hellish principles reigning which, presently, would kindle and flame out into hellfire.
7. Simply because there are not visible means of death before them at any given moment, the wicked should not feel secure.
8. Simply because it is natural to care for oneself or to think that others may care for them, men should not think themselves safe from God’s wrath.
9. All that wicked men may do to save themselves from Hell’s pains shall afford them nothing if they continue to reject Christ.
10. God has never promised to save mankind from Hell, except for those contained in Christ through the covenant of Grace.

In the concluding part of “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God,” Edwards demonstrates that his theological reasoning is consistent across scripture and biblical history. He references various stories and examples from the Bible. Edwards concludes the sermon with a compelling invitation: “Therefore let everyone that is out of Christ, now awake and fly from the wrath to come.” According to Edwards and the Bible, the only way to evade the fate he describes is by returning to Christ.

“Unconverted men walk over the pit of hell on a rotten covering.”

Jonathan Edwards, Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God

“That the reason why they are not fallen already and do not fall now is only that God’s appointed time is not come. For it is said, that when that due time, or appointed time comes, their foot shall slide. Then they shall be left to fall, as they are inclined by their own weight. God will not hold them up in these slippery places any longer, but will let them go; and then, at that very instant, they shall fall into destruction; as he that stands on such slippery declining ground, on the edge of a pit, he cannot stand alone, when he is let go he immediately falls and is lost.”

Jonathan Edwards, Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God

“The bow of God’s wrath is bent, and the arrow made ready on the string, and justice bends the arrow at your heart, and strains the bow, and it is nothing but the mere pleasure of God, and that of an angry God, without any promise or obligation at all, that keeps the arrow one moment from being made drunk with your blood.”

Jonathan Edwards, Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God

“What are we, that we should think to stand before him, at whose rebuke the earth trembles, and before whom the rocks are thrown down?”

Jonathan Edwards, Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God