Selected Sermons. Lemuel Haynes. Edited by Jared C. Wilson. 2023. 71 pages. [Review copy]
First sentence: You hold in your hands a rare gem recovered from one of the darker mines of church history, as Lemuel Haynes is perhaps the single most important American figure most Christians have never heard of. Born July 18th in 1753 to a Black man and a White woman, Haynes was abandoned by his parens in the home of a family friend who sold the infant Haynes into indentured servitude. By the providential hand of God, however, young Lemuel was place into a Christian home, where by all accounts including his own, he was treated as a member of the family and raised to love the things of God.
Selected Sermons by Lemuel Haynes contains four sermons: "Universal Salvation," "A Sermon on John 3:3," "The Character and Work of a Spiritual Watchman Described," "Liberty Further Extended."
Is the book a rare gem? Yes. Because reprints of his sermons are rare--at least according to the introduction/preface. I certainly have never heard of him as a theologian/preacher/teacher/author. I've not come across his work before. Yes. Because it is a 'gem.' I know, I know, I know that there are just four sermons. But a book doesn't have to be LONG to be worthwhile. Would I have read this book if there'd been sixteen sermons? YES. Sadly, there just aren't that many copies of his sermons to have survived. So we have four that have survived. Must be thankful for that at least.
The sermons that stick out most from my reading are the first and last. In "Universal Salvation," Haynes is preaching against the heresy of universal salvation. He argues that Satan/the Devil was the first preacher and that the first 'sermon' ever 'preached' to mankind was that of universal salvation. His sermon on the fall of man [Genesis 3] is SOMETHING. It got me thinking. It engaged me. I'd honestly never thought of the devil as a preacher. But after reading this sermon it began to make all kinds of sense. He masquerades as an angel of light and he's the father of lies. He knows just what to say to 'tickle' the ears of his audience. He can twist the truth just enough to deceive and mislead. He has always used Scripture to his so-called advantage. Adding here, subtracting there, twisting, turning, pulling, distracting. In "Liberty Further Extended." this American Patriot preaches against slavery. This is a mighty sermon--point after point after point, it's on target and just rings TRUE. He argues against all the so-called 'reasons' in support of slavery that are supposedly from the Bible are faulty.
All the sermons are worth reading.
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