In this sermon, the preacher shares a powerful testimony of a man who was transformed by God. The man had previously come with a gun to harm the preacher, but after encountering God, he was completely changed. The preacher emphasizes the importance of patience in ministry, highlighting that sometimes it takes multiple encounters with the Word of God for people to be truly transformed. He also discusses the impact of revival, sharing how a barroom was turned into a prayer room during a powerful revival. The sermon concludes with the preacher emphasizing the power of prevailing prayer and the need for righteousness in order to experience the blessings of God.

I've entitled this study tonight, Memoirs of the Revivalists. And we're going to look at the earliest years, so this will be part one, if perchance we're able to do a second study, maybe in the up-and-coming weeks. But I'd like tonight to begin to look at some of the revivals that Brother Charles Finney and others had been involved with. I'd like to lay a little bit of a foundation, if I could, just basically launching from last week's study where we looked at a little bit of the life of Charles Finney and just begin from there, praying that you might preach. Praying that you might preach. It's been over 150 years since Charles G. Finney began preaching the great revivals that would eventually be part of what we know as the Second Great Awakening. See, Charles Finney believed that two things were required to have revival. He believed that there should be prevailing prayer and powerful preaching. As we learn from his lectures on revivals, preaching is done to influence men, but prevailing prayer is done to influence God. I think also that it's important to rightly understand the meaning of genuine love for God and our neighbor before we even proceed looking at some of the accounts of Charles Finney's preaching methods and the results. And the reason being is that when you read them, a lot of people in our day would think that a lot of his methods were quite cruel or that maybe he was a very strong preacher and maybe that he lacked the love of God or something like that. So I'd like to begin by laying a little bit of framework and just kind of look at some things concerning the love of God so that we can have a better understanding of what really was behind a lot of the preaching that Brother Charles Finney would do. See, love for God and His Christ will cause you to place His glory above all other motives in life. And as a minister, love for your neighbor will drive you to pray and to preach until you prevail with God and man for the salvation of their eternal souls. This is genuine love that Christ would receive those for whom He died. See, it's not love to just sit back and watch people lost and dying in their sin. That's not love. See, that's not love. And Brother Charles Finney did not believe in exercising this kind of passive so-called love that we so often have to deal with and contend with in today's society. A lot of things have been said about Charles Finney and his methods of preaching revival. People didn't like them then, and to be honest, many do not like them now. Charles Finney did not believe in preaching assurance of salvation apart from obedience to God's Word. He believed that if you were a Christian, that your life would exemplify that Christianity. His theological positions would seem to be unorthodox to many. He believed that when a Christian sinned, that they were on the same footing with the sinner before God. And this led to preaching that demanded that people live upright before God if they ever expect to see a moment in heaven. Jesus told us to go into the highways and the hedges and to compel the people to come in. This is exactly what Charles Finney did under the Holy Spirit and the anointing of God. He compelled them, and the Spirit of God convicted them. And when the people were thoroughly convicted of their sins after sometimes many days without an altar call, Charles Finney would show them Christ, and they would reach out for a pardon in faith. For the revivals of the second great awakening, the compulsion that led to conviction yielded conversion by the Spirit of God. God calls His servants to compel that He might convict and convert. And so it is. Before I go on, I would like to read a little quote from Leonard Ravenhill that was passed to me by Brother Jesse Murrell. And I think that this quote really does speak to Charles Finney and the way that he did preach. Finney never made an altar call. I believe this was the Rochester revival this was referring to, but I'd have to look into it. Finney never made an altar call within the first 28 nights of preaching. Most of our evangelists don't have 28 sermons. Leonard Ravenhill talking. 28 nights in a row, he never made an altar call. He didn't preach the love of God. He didn't say you're a sinner and God loves you. He said God is angry with the wicked every day, Psalm 711, which the Word of God teaches. He didn't preach grace. He preached law. He didn't preach love. He preached judgment. He didn't preach heaven. He preached hell. He didn't say you're a wonderful person. He said you're a rebel. But he got results. 64% of D.L. Moody's converts backslid. But 72% of the converts Finney got stood because he knew how to attach the human will, not just the emotions. And that could be attack there. That, of course, being a quote by Leonard Ravenhill. Praise the Lord. Let's continue on in our study. The evangelistic team. The evangelistic team. Daniel Nash, or as we may know him as Father Nash, was a former pastor of a small church in the frontier of New York for six years that later traveled as a prayer warrior with Charles G. Finney for seven more years until his death. See, Daniel Nash was deemed too old to preach at his church. So on September 25, 1822, a strange church meeting was held at an unusual time, and he was voted out by a vote of nine to three. The only reason surviving to this day in the records was that they wanted a young man to settle in. And at the age of 46, they felt that Daniel Nash was too old, and they resented his traveling. But God still used this former pastor to send revival, but he was never reinstated. God blessed him, though he was rejected. Through all of this, God was breaking him, as it were, and preparing the heart of this man to lead the life of public ministry of preaching for a private life of prayer. For those of you who know anything about Brother Daniel Nash, he traveled with Charles Finney, as we'll look at here in a minute. But I think it's important to realize that it wasn't just the preaching of Charles Finney that made for such powerful revivals. There was a tremendous amount of prayer that would go into the messages that would be preached. There are a lot of stories that abound about people going into town before he would ever come to preach, and they would pray sometimes for as long as three weeks in prayer he would spend. Staying sometimes in people's cellars in various places, anywhere that they could find a spot to kind of come in, undercover as it were, and begin praying for the place where they were about to preach. The plight of the prayer warrior. If there is one thing that has a crushing effect on a person, it's rejection. For Daniel Nash, he had been to his own personal garden of crushing, or Gethsemane, in the time following his removal by the church board. About this same time in 1824, Charles Finney was to be examined for a license to preach. There would be their first encounter. They ministered together, Brother Nash and Brother Finney, for seven years. They also traveled with another man by the name of Abel Clary, who would go before them and they would preach. He would preach and they would pray until God moved. J. Paul Reno writes, It is said of Finney that his evangelistic party, or his prayer team, as it were, consisted of prayer partners who went before him and sought the Lord in some secluded spot. And when Finney was preaching, Father Nash, Daniel Nash, that is, and Mr. Clary were hidden away somewhere praying for him. No wonder cities were stirred and a vast harvest of souls was reaped. This concept of evangelistic party was made up of praying men, has nearly been lost in the days of organizers, promoters, big names, etc. Such praying men not only sustained Finney's ministry, he continues, but explained the power in preaching and the long-lasting results. This partnership and ministry lasted roughly seven years. And after the passing of Daniel Nash, Charles Finney took a position of pastor within three months at Chatham Chapel. See, I believe Charles Finney understood the power of prayer. Many times he called on Brother Nash to begin to pray and agreed it with him in prayer when people would begin to rise up against the revivals, he would call upon him and they would agree together in prayer for that revival. J. Paul Reno summarizes the life of Daniel Nash in his ministry, in his death. He says, his tombstone is in a neglected cemetery along a dirt road behind a livestock auction barn. His church no longer exists. Its meeting house location marked by a historical marker in a cornfield. The building is gone. Its timber is used to house grain at a feed mill four miles down the road. There are no books that tell of his life story, no pictures or diaries can be found. His descendants, if any, cannot be located and his messages are forgotten. He wrote no books, started no schools, led no movements, and generally he kept out of sight. See, Daniel Nash entered his prayer closet in secret and the God who answers by fire rewarded this man in the meetings that Charles Finney preached openly. Reno continues, the majority of prayer for those who would be so used must be in private. They do not seek either the eye nor the ear of men, but rather the ear of God. They seek a closet alone with God. Nash used a cellar, a room in a boarding house, or a nearby house, or a grove of trees where he could pour out his heart to God alone, or just with a few others with a similar burden of heart. See, Daniel Nash died on his knees in prayer. That's how he was found to have died. Praise the Lord. I think it's important for us to realize that any preacher who preaches must have those who will agree with him in prayer. I've heard of many, many ministers who even to this day, the whole time they're preaching, they have people interceding before the Lord for the services that are going on. Your next section, the six-month mission. The six-month mission. At the age of 31 years, roughly three months after Charles City was ordained to preach by the St. Lawrence Presbytery, the Female Missionary Society in Oneida County, New York, commissioned him to preach for a six-month term in the counties to their north. If you're ever looking at a map of New York, Oneida County, I hope I'm pronouncing that right, is centered in the state, and just to the north would be Lewis County, then Jefferson County, and if you go back towards the west, you see Lake Ontario, which, of course, if you go on back to the west would be Toronto. There's a lot of revival history in this area, and this is where Charles Finney was sent and commissioned to preach for these six months. Charles Finney had no regular training for the ministry, and he did not expect or desire to labor in large towns or cities, or minister to already cultivated congregations. He didn't go there to build upon another man's work. He intended to go into the new settlements and preach in the schoolhouses, the barns, the groves, or even outdoors, anywhere that the doors were open. Charles Finney went first to the northern part of Jefferson County and the northwestern part of New York and began his ministry at Evans Mills in the town of Luray. Now, the village of Evans Mills is situated within the town of Luray in Jefferson County, New York. Here he found two churches. He had a small congregational church that did not have a minister, and he found a Baptist church that did have a minister. He presented his credentials to the deacons of the church, and they gladly accepted him, and he began to minister, of course, for the congregational church. The churches had no meeting house, but the two worshipped alternately back and forth in a large stone schoolhouse that was large enough to accommodate all of the children that were in the village. It was a pretty good-sized building, I guess, compared to what we have today. It wouldn't be, but in that time, it was. The Baptists occupied the house on one Sunday and then the Congregationalists on the next. So he had the house every other Sunday. Then he could use the schoolhouse in the evenings whenever he wanted to. And because of this, Charles Finney decided to then divide up every other Sunday between ministering in Evans Mills, and then on the other Sunday, he would minister in Antwerp, which, of course, was about 12 miles to the northeast. So he would alternate back and forth. Let's start to look a little bit at Charles Finney's messages and what it was like to sit into one of his services. The preparation, we've talked about a little bit of it that leads up to his service, but let's begin to look at what his services were like. See, Charles Finney began to preach from week to week in the schoolhouse at Evans Mills. And the people were very interested. They thronged the place to hear him preach. They celebrated. They enjoyed his preaching. And the little Congregational church became very hopeful that there would be a revival. And see, that's kind of the situation that we have today. See, a lot of people are really attuned to the idea of revival. And if you had asked a lot of Christians, they would say, yes, we want to see a revival. But a lot of times, they're not really thinking about the revival that God's wanting to send. They want to see some kind of stirring come or maybe some kind of evangelistic move, but they don't want to see a revival. And the evidence that we see in this case comes out pretty quickly. However, there was no general conviction that it appeared among the people corporately. Finney was very dissatisfied with the state of things. And on one of the evening services, after having preached there two or three Sundays and several evenings in the week, he told the people at the close of his sermon, this is what he said, quote, I have come here to secure the salvation of your souls. My preaching, I know, is highly complimented by you, but I did not come here to please you, but to bring you to repentance. It matters not to me how well you are pleased with my preaching, if, after all, you would reject my master. Something is wrong, either in me or in you. The kind of interest that you manifested for my preaching is doing you no good, and I cannot spend my time with you unless you are going to receive the gospel. Charles Finney, he then went on to quote the words of Abraham's servant who said, Now will you deal kindly and truly with my master question? If you will, tell me. And if not, tell me, that I may know whether I shall turn to the right hand or to the left. You see, Charles Finney wanted to know whether or not they were going to receive the Lord Jesus Christ or whether they were going to simply resist the gospel. If they determined to resist, he was going to leave. But if they were going to receive Christ, he would say, stay. He said to them, you admit that what I preach is the gospel. You profess to believe it. Now will you receive it? See, there's a difference. There's a difference. Do you mean to receive it or do you intend to reject it? You must have some mind about it or you must be thinking about it, in other words. And now, he said, I have the right to take it for granted, inasmuch as you admit that I have preached the truth, that you acknowledge your obligation at once to become Christians. This obligation you do not deny, but you will meet. Will you meet the obligation, he asked, or will you discharge it? Will you do what you admit you ought to do if you will not tell me and if you will tell me that I may know whether I shall turn to the right hand or to the left? Charles Finney wanted to know who was on the Lord's side. He wanted to know who was on the Lord's side. See, Charles Finney was not an entertainer. He had one objective, and that was to see the people turn to God and to walk upright before him. He was not looking for the praise of men. He pressed this congregation by telling them to stand up, stand to their feet, that is, if he, if they rather, wanted to receive Christ. They remained seated. They remained seated. He sent them home then to ponder that they had rejected the Lord. Reflecting back on this, Finney writes, I said to them, then you are committed. You have taken your stand. You have rejected Christ and his gospel, and you are witnesses one against the other, and God is witness against you all. This is explicit. And you may remember so long as you live that you have thus publicly committed yourselves against the Savior. Then he said, we will not have this man, Jesus Christ, to reign over us, as if that was what they were saying. This is the purport of what I urged upon them, and as nearly in these words as I can recollect. When I thus pressed them, he continued, they began to look angry. And then they arose in mass and started for the door. And they began to move. I paused. As soon as I stopped speaking, they turned to see why I did not go on. And I said, I am sorry for you. I will preach to you once more, the Lord willing, tomorrow night. I asked the question, who in our day would take such a stand for Christ? Who would be willing to press so hard upon the minds and the hearts of men to move beyond the emotions and move their will? This type of preaching came with a large price tag. Then he continues, but for that evening and the next day, they were all full of wrath. Deacon McSee and myself agreed upon the spot to spend the next day in fasting and prayer separately in the morning and together in the afternoon. I learned throughout the course of the day that the people were threatening me. They were going to ride me out on a rail to tar and feather me and give me my walking papers, as they said. Some of them cursed me. And they said that I had put them under an oath and had made them swear that they would not serve God, that I had drawn them into a solemn and public pledge to reject Christ and his gospel. The time came for the service to begin. They left the woods. They had been in prayer. They went to the village. The people were already thronging until the house was filled almost to capacity. As was always Finney's method, he did not have a sermon written out to preach. And in this case, he didn't even think about what he was going to preach. That's how Finney preached. If you've ever studied him, you would know that what he would do is he would pray and seek the Lord and be full of the word of God. And then he would get behind the pulpit and wait for the Lord to impress upon him at that moment what to preach. Oftentimes, he didn't even have his sermon text in front of him until he got behind the pulpit. And then later on, after he got through preaching, then he would go back to wherever he was staying and sit down and write out the outline of what he could recollect that the Spirit of God gave him for the people at that moment. Or that night, rather. See, Finney recounts the start of the meeting. He said, The Spirit of God came upon me with such power, it was like opening a battery upon them. For more than an hour, perhaps an hour and a half, the word of God came through me to them in a manner that I could see was carrying all before it. It was a fire and a hammer breaking the rock. And it was a sword that was piercing to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit. I saw that a general conviction was spreading all over the whole congregation, he says. Many of them could not hold up their heads. I did not call that night for any reversal of the action that they had taken the night before, nor for any committal of themselves in any way. But I took it for granted during the whole of the sermon that they were committed against the Lord. Then I appointed another meeting and I dismissed the congregation. Compelled and convicted. You see, this is where 99% of ministers would have made an altar call. But not Charles G. Finney. He sent the people home again to ponder their estate before God. Before he was through ministering, the fallow ground of their hearts was thoroughly plowed and mellowed, if they were even in the least yielding to the Spirit of God. And in that brokenness, God can plant a seed of his good word. Many ministers in our day stop well short of such brokenness in their preaching, and the results bear this out. You may wonder what kind of an effect this type of preaching has on a person. You may wonder. One account Finney gave was very telling. Here he writes, As the people withdrew from this meeting, I observed a woman in the arms of some of her friends who were supporting her in one part of the house. And I went to see what was the matter, supposing that she was in some kind of fainting fit. But I soon found out that she was not fainting, but she could not speak. There was a look of the greatest anguish in her face, and she made me to understand that she could not speak. I advised the woman to take her home and to pray with her and see what the Lord would do. They informed me that she was Miss G., sister of a well-known missionary, and that she was a member of the church in good standing, and had been for several years. That evening, instead of going to my usual lodgings, I accepted an invitation and went home with the family where I had not been stopped before overnight. Early in the morning, I found that I had been sent forth to the place where I was supposed to be, and several times during the night to visit families where there were persons under awful distress of mind. This led me to Sally, forth among the people, and everywhere I found a state of wonderful conviction of sin and alarm for their souls. He continues, after lying in a speechless state about sixteen hours, Miss G.'s mouth was opened and a new song was given unto her. She was taken from this horrible pit of miry clay, and her feet was set upon a rock, and it was true that many saw it and feared. She later told her testimony that she had never really known the Lord and had believed a false hope. She was saved for the first time in her life, though she had been many years in that church. I ask the question, is it love? Is it love? I must take a moment to reflect on this one question. Is it love to allow people that we esteem as friends or family to go on believing a lie and be damned? Is that love? Or is it cruel to minister in a way that would leave a person unable to speak or in agony of soul for days if that was the only way that a person could be converted? Keep in mind that this woman was the wife of a missionary and had heard countless messages in her life that never brought her to genuine repentance and faith. How many messages do you think she may have heard in her life? What would have happened had Charles G. Finney not been sent by God to that church? What would have happened? What would have happened to this woman? Great opposition. Great opposition. Anytime God is doing a work, the enemy is working through people to bring all sorts of distractions and resistance. This was also true in this revival. Finney recounts, there was one old man in this place who was not only an infidel, but a great railer at religion. He was very angry with the revival movement. I heard every day of his railing and blaspheming, but I took no public notice of it. He refused altogether to attend a meeting, but in the midst of his opposition, and when his excitement was great while sitting one morning at the table, he suddenly fell out of his chair in a fit of apoplexy. That's a brain hemorrhage. A physician was immediately called who, after brief examination, told him that he could live but just a short time, and that if he had anything to say, he should say it at once. He had just enough strength and time, as I have been informed, to stammer out these words, Don't let Finney pray over my corpse. And this was the last of his opposition in that place. See, it's a dangerous thing when people begin to go out and move against the true and genuine move of God, as it was with this man as he found out. There are accounts of various people resisting the word of the Lord and refusing to repent, and then going out into eternity in that condition. One woman was a universalist who did turn to Christ. Her husband was a universalist also, and when he heard that Finney had preached the gospel to her and that she was converted, this man went into a rage. He swore that he was going to kill Finney. He armed himself with a loaded pistol, and that night he went to the meeting where he was going to preach. See, Finney didn't even know he was there. He didn't know he had a gun either. The meeting that evening was at the schoolhouse in the village. The house was packed almost to suffocation as he described it. Finney described the night, I went on to preach with all of my might, and almost in the midst of my discourse I saw a powerful looking man about in the middle of the house fall from his seat. He sunk down and he groaned. Then he cried and he shrieked out that he was sinking down into hell. He repeated this several times. The people knew who he was, but he was a stranger to me. I think I had never seen him before. Of course, this created a great excitement. It broke up my preaching and it was so great. His anguish was that we spent the rest of our time praying for this man. You think about a man that was coming to kill the preacher. He had a gun. He was going to kill the man of God. I believe it was the prayers of people like Daniel Nash. It was God intervening to protect Brother Finney and his divine providence and to make sure that this would happen. Moreover, we see the conviction that was so great within the house that when he came in to kill the man, he ended up being at least dealt with and later on possibly even turned his life over to the Lord. The man went home sorely distressed, but was miraculously converted and met Finney in the road early the next morning as a new man. Read the account of this. He was walking down the road. Brother Finney, you've got to think about this. The night before, this guy had come bringing a gun, going to shoot the man of God, and he's just seeing him walking down the street. He runs up to Charles Finney, takes him up in his arms, and begins to spin him around, carrying him in a circle with this glow on his face about how God had so changed this man. It's a powerful thing. Powerful testimony how God had so turned him around. Praise the Lord. Binding together with the Prince of Prayer. You know, that's what they call Daniel Nash, so I understand. There's a book about his life. I think you can find it on the Internet for about a buck seventy-five, probably a little book that talks about him. There's also information that you could just look over and find. When Father Nash came to Evans Mills, Charles Finney said that he was full of the power of prayer. He was another man altogether than what he had meant earlier on when he was being ordained. Finney writes, I found that he had a prayer list, as he had called it, with a list of the names of the people that he had made subjects of prayer every day, and sometimes many times a day he would pray for them. And praying with him and hearing him pray in the meeting, I found that his gift of prayer was wonderful and his faith was almost miraculous. He had come just in time to help pray for a village tavern owner that we shall simply call Mr. D. The tavern owned by Mr. D. was a refuge for all the opposers of the revival. The ballroom was a place of blasphemy, he said, and Mr. D. himself was the most profane, ungodly, and abusive man. He went railing about in the streets about the revival and would go out of his way to swear and blaspheme in the presence of Christians. You ever met someone like that? You get around Christians, all of a sudden they just step up their cursing to another level. Try to make a show or something. A young Christian lived across the way from me, told Finney he was moving out because every time Mr. D. saw him, he would swear and curse and say everything he could to hurt his feelings. See, actually, Mr. D. knew very little about Christianity and the revival. See, Father Nash, Brother Daniel Nash, got word of Mr. D.'s behavior and immediately put his name on his prayer list. He remained in town a day or two and moved on then to another place that the Lord had called him. Finney remarks on what had happened next, not many days afterward as we were holding an evening meeting with a very crowded house. Who should come in? Who should come in, he asked, but the notorious D. His entrance created a considerable movement in the congregation. People feared that he had come to make a disturbance. The fear and abhorrence of him had become very general among Christians, I believe, so that when he came in, some of the people got up and left. I knew his countenance and I kept my eye on him. I very soon became satisfied that he had not come in to oppose and that he was in great anguish of mind. He sat and writhed upon a seat and was very uneasy. He soon arose and trembling asked me if he could say a few words. I told him that he could. Finney continues. He then proceeded to make one of the most heartbroken confessions that I have almost ever heard. His confession seemed to cover the whole ground of his treatment of God, his treatment of Christians, of the revival, and everything good. This thoroughly broke up the fallow ground in many hearts. You know the Scripture said that they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony. You think about how powerful this man's testimony was as he got up to speak. He soon came out and professed a hope, abolished all the revelry and profanity of his bar room, and from that time as long as I stayed there, I know not how much longer, but a prayer meeting was held in the bar room nearly every night. You think about the power of this revival and God moving among the people when the bar rooms turned into a place that could become a prayer room. Praise the Lord. And finally tonight, I simply asked a few questions. What can close a bar room and convert the hardest of sinners? Revival. What can move the hand of God in these days of declension? Prevailing prayer. What weapon can God use in his hands to smite the hardest of hearts? Powerful anointed preaching. When the compelling words of the preacher are backed by the anointing of God through prevailing prayer, men and women are converted. When the preacher is patient enough, patient enough to allow the Holy Spirit time to do his work, even if it takes days or weeks, God will change lives. May we find those qualities of ministry in our lives. May we find them. May we find that patience. May we move even as ministers beyond the time where we need to be instantly gratified by seeing people respond to a 30 or 45 minute message and realize that you might need to preach to them three or four times, four, five, six times, in some cases many, 29 days in a row before some people are broken down to a place to where God can really move and change their life and they be born again of the Spirit, according to John 3.3. May we learn the virtues of being patient and staying the course until God moves. Heavenly Father, Lord, I just want to end tonight by saying, Lord, God, we're thankful that you have been patient with us. Lord, not 29 days, not 29 weeks, many times over 29 years you've been patient with us, God. Lord, we just pray that you would teach us to have patience as well as we minister, even as Brother Finney. God, that we would learn the power of prevailing prayer, that we would prevail in the Spirit, God, for souls to be birthed into your kingdom. Lord, we pray, God, that revival would come to our nation. Lord, I pray that you would prepare our hearts for revival. Lord, we may not even be prepared for the revival that you're wanting to send. We have a concept of revival, but God, you know what you want to do. And Lord, we pray that your perfect will be done. Lord, I pray for those that are attending, Lord, and hearing tonight, God, that you would touch their hearts, that you would touch their lives, that you would draw them nigh unto you. God, break every setter that binds in their life. God, that they could pursue you, that they could move and go into the sides of the north, God, with clean hands and a pure heart before you. And God, I pray finally for Sermon Index, God, that you would keep your hand upon this...