Sinner in the Hands of an Angry God

     "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God" has to be one of the most powerful speeches I have ever read. Powerful in a sense of being able to instill so much fear into the audience, that they do not dare not to listen. In this speech, Johnathan Edwards speaks to a crowd of sinners in a tent. His job is to go around and preach to people about not sinning, so they will not go to hell. This takes place in 1741, when there already were very strong religious beliefs, as well as an intimidation from God to the people. Edwards' main goal was to get the people to stop sinning, so that eventually they end up going to heaven.Though his words were very harsh, and quite disturbing, it did get the message through.
     At the actual day when he gave his speech, his voice was very monotonous and boring, despite the strong words. This created a sort of suspense for the audience, because they were always left wondering, "Is he going to look at me?", "Is he going to explode any second?". Through these little ways to capture the audience's attention, Edwards was ablew to achieve his goal of scaring the people enough to follow him. His powerful imagery was very frightening. The mere fact that someone is telling you that the only thing keeping you alive is God makes you automatically look to God as this being that should not even be gone against. God was the only chance of hope left for these people in their minds, which means that Edwards was able to persuade the entire lot of people to follow his ideas. This shows that maybe fear is the answer to be able to control people... Then again, any person wanting to brainwash any large group of people should have no problems with instilling fear in them.