Ann Judson, part 3: Testing God’s patience

Ann’s friends were terrified that God was going to strike her down for her sin.

(4.5 minutes)

God brings some to repentence while leaving others in sin

Paul persecuted Christians, but God stopped him in his tracks. Herod did something similar, but God let him die as an unbeliever. We can thank God that he saved Ann like he did Paul.

In part 2, we left her as a teenager who lived for pleasure and considered herself “one of the happiest creatures on the earth.” But this started to change one Sunday morning in 1805.

Today, we start a three-part series, talking about how God brought Ann from darkness and into the light.

Ann stumbles onto a book that starts to change her life

That Sunday morning, which started like any other Sunday, Ann had gotten out of bed and started to dress for church. She had just finished when, to use her own words, she “accidentally” picked up a book by Hannah More and read the lines “she that liveth in pleasure is dead while she liveth” (1 Tim. 5:6).

The words on the page were italicized and “struck her to her heart.” She didn't see a light or hear a voice, but for a few moments she thought that some invisible being had caused her eyes to see those words. Her conscience was immediately troubled, but it gave in almost as fast. She quickly convinced herself that those words didn't apply to her as much as she had first thought.

Reading Pilgrim’s Progress, coming to the wrong conclusion

Ann was able to hold back these troubling thoughts for a while, but God was after her, and she was not going to get away. A few months later, she began to read Pilgrim’s Progress on Sunday afternoons, and she became interested in the story of Christian, who leaves the City of Destruction and makes a perilous journey to the Celestial City. On the day she finished the book, she concluded that Christian had made it to heaven because he'd stayed on the narrow path. She felt that his good works had brought him safely through the trials of life. 

This book convinced her to become serious about becoming a Christian, but she didn’t know the true way of salvation. Instead of putting her faith in Christ, she doubled down on her old efforts to do all the right things. She did ask God for help, but she concluded that the way to get to heaven was to reject  parties and entertainment. This resolve was tested the next day, when a friend told her of a New Year's Day party they had been invited to. Ann felt good that she could resist that temptation, but that evening she gave in to another one. 

This second invitation was for a small party at a friend’s house. Since it would just be the family, Ann thought she could accept without breaking her commitment. But when she arrived, she found that three or four other families had also come. The music started, the dancing began, and she was swept into the thick of it—just as if she had never heard of Hannah More or Pilgrim’s Progress. When she returned home that night, she found another invitation and accepted it without a thought.

When good works get too hard, Ann goes back to seeking pleasure

That next party came and went without a twinge of guilt, but when she returned home, she felt she was undone. What chance did she have of keeping another resolution? And if she couldn't keep them, why make them? For the next four months, she spent nearly every waking moment thinking about clothes and the next event on the calendar. 

Ann’s friends are convinced that God is about to judge her

She had glimpsed the light, but in the futility of self-effort she despaired of ever reaching it. Later on, she said of those months, “I so far surpassed my friends in gaiety and mirth, that some of them were afraid that I had but a short time to continue my life of folly, and would suddenly be cut off.”