Asahel Nettleton's Testimony

In our day of an easy-to-believe gospel, where if you want to be saved, all you have to do is casually walk an aisle and agree to a few questions, still hang on to all your rights in your life, and still hang on to all your sins, and still go to heaven. It's a stark contrast to look at how believers came to Christ in former days, especially centuries ago in this country. It would often take several months for a person to safely come to Christ during the second great awakening back in the 1800s.

First, they'd become awakened to their lost condition outside of Christ. They would be shut up to the law of God and shown their utter strictness and severity of that God's holy law, that God requires perfection to get into his holy heaven, and that man is not perfect, and when his deeds are placed up against that utter strictness of God's law, he'll fail the test, and the sentencing of that law must be carried out. Thus, sinners were shown their absolute need of repentance.

Then, as God's spirits drove with them in conviction of sin, they would actually feel the terrors of hell and believe themselves utterly deserving of eternal punishment. They would clearly see their absolute need of a work of regeneration upon their heart, that a transformation must take place. They would become seekers of God, and all their self-righteousness would be seen for what it was, a false foundation.

All their false props would be broken up underneath them. Then, they would seek an interest in Christ and the gospel, and after exercising repentance toward God and faith in Jesus Christ, they would enter into the joy of salvation. Their life would be completely transformed, friends.

A new disposition would be implanted in them by the Spirit of God to enable them to hate sin and live a holy life unto the God who saved them. But to many of us today, all of this work of the Holy Spirit sounds completely foreign and quite unnecessary to become a Christian, because to become a Christian today, all you have to do is agree with the text of scripture and physically perform an act like walking an aisle or repeating a prayer. Your lifestyle need not change one iota.

You can hug your sins and love the world and still go to heaven. At least that's what folks tell us today. But in reality, friend, if you want to be saved, you must throw down your shotgun of rebellion at the foot of a sovereign king and surrender your all to him and to all the rights and claims that the gospel has on your life.

Your life is no longer your own. Jesus must be a complete master, and you must now walk the Calvary Road in a life of discipleship with unswerving obedience as you pick up your cross, deny yourself for Christ and the gospel. I believe it can be a great blessing to read the testimonies of men and women who've been remarkably used of God in former generations.

Reading the testimony of, say, David Brainerd is one of the best exercises we can do to have a better grasp on the gospel and what true salvation is. The same can be said for men like George Whitefield, Jonathan Edwards, Charles Spurgeon, and Azahel Nettleton. Today I'd like to read us the salvation experience of Azahel Nettleton.

Nettleton was the primary figure of the second great awakening. He was being used in powerful revivals before Charles Fanny was even saved. I want to take the time now, friends, to read you his written testimony.

When I was conducting my research on Nettleton's life from my definitive biography on him, I traveled to over 60 locations across three states, which were historical scenes, revivals, which took place under his mighty preaching. His first biographer, Bennett Tyler, said of Nettleton, he said he was the human means of over 30,000 souls coming into the kingdom. I place that number much higher.

I've gone over Nettleton's handwritten diary, which is in the archives at Hartford Seminary. Nettleton kept a list of converts of the revival, and the list is simply amazing. In our day of weak evangelism and false converts, I believe we can learn much, friends, from Azahel Nettleton and the second great awakening, and I want to take the time now to read us the account of how he found Christ.

Listen carefully to his words before we go to our time of prayer. Here now are Nettleton's words, as printed in the Connecticut Evangelical Magazine. From my earliest age, I endeavored to lead a moral life, being often taught that God would punish sinners, but I did not believe that I should suffer for the few offenses of which I had been guilty.

Having avoided many sins, which I saw in others, I imagined all was well with me until I was about 18 years old when I heard a sermon preached on the necessity of regeneration, which put me upon thinking of the need of a change of heart in myself. I did not, however, well receive the discourse at the time, for I was sensible. I knew nothing about such a change, neither did I wish to know, for I believed myself as good as others without it, and to be equal with them I thought would be sufficient.

However, the thought troubled me considerably from day to day and caused me to think of praying, which I had never done except repeat in some form as a little child and doing it to remove the stains of a guilty conscience when I considered myself in imminent danger. Sometime after this, I heard another sermon that convinced me I had quenched the spirit, which occasioned me the most alarming fears that I should forever be left to eat the fruit of my own ways. Supposing I was alone in the thoughts of eternity, I separated myself from all company and determined to seek an interest in Christ.

I concluded something must be done to appease God's anger. I read and prayed and strove in every possible way to prepare myself to go to God, that I might be saved from His wrath. The more I strove in this selfish way, the more anxious I was, and no hope was given.

Soon I began to murmur and repine and accused God of the greatest injustice in requiring me to return to Him, and while I was striving with all my might, as I supposed, He appeared not to regard me. I considered God obligated to love me because I had done so much for Him, and finding no relief, I wished that He might not be, and began really to doubt the truth of His holy word and to disbelieve His existence. For if there was a God, I perfectly hated Him.

I searched the scripture daily, hoping to find inconsistencies in them, to condemn the Bible because it was against me, and while I was diligently pursuing my purpose, everything I read and every sermon I heard condemned me. A Christian conversation gave me the most painful sensations. I tried to repent, but I could not feel the least sorrow for my innumerable sins.

By endeavoring to repent, I saw my heart still remained impenitent. Although I knew I hated everything serious, yet I determined to habituate myself to the duties which God required and see if I could not by that means be made to love Him, and I continued in this state some months. The fear of having committed the unpardonable sin now began to rise in my mind, and I could find no rest day or night.

When my weary limbs demanded sleep, the fear of awakening in a miserable eternity prevented the closing of my eyes, and nothing gave me ease. No voice of mirth or sound whatever was heard, but what reminded me of the awful day when God shall bring every work into judgment. All self-righteousness failed me, and having no confidence in God, I was left in deep despondency.

After a while, a surprising tremor seized all my limbs, and death appeared to have taken hold upon me. Eternity, the word eternity, sounded louder than any voice I ever heard, and every moment of time seemed more valuable than all the wealth of the world. Not long after this, an unusual calmness pervaded my soul, which I thought little of at first except that I was freed from my awful convictions, and this sometimes grieved me, fearing I had lost all conviction.

Soon after, hearing the feelings of a Christian described, I took courage and thought I knew by experience what they were. The character of God and the doctrines of the Bible, which I could not meditate upon before without hatred, especially those of election and free grace, now appear delightful, and the only means by which, through grace, dead sinners can be made the living sons of God. My heart feels its sinfulness.

To confess my sins to God gives me that peace which before I knew nothing of. To sorrow for it affords that joy which my tongue cannot express. Were I sensible that at death my hopes would perish, yet it seemeth to me now that I could not willingly quit the service of God nor the company of Christians.

But my unfaithfulness often makes me fear my sincerity, and I should at last be raised to glory. All the praise will be to God for the exhibition of that sovereign grace. Well, friends, I want to ponder on those thoughts as we go to our time of prayer, and as we contemplate the easy-believed gospel of our day, which doesn't even demand repentance from sin.

All you have to do is believe, and you can go to heaven. There has to be no change in your life. You can stay the same.

You can still love the world and love your sins and still go to heaven. Well, that's a big lie, friends. It's a lie from the pit of hell.

We need to re-examine what the gospel really is. We need to re-examine what salvation really is, and it will do us great help to study men like Azahel Middleton and how God used them in former times to bring forth his effusions of divine grace in revival. Let us take this time now to prepare our hearts for revival, prepare our hearts for personal revival, prepare our hearts for corporate revival, and to beg God to send a national revival before this wicked nation is destroyed through his judgment.

Let us go now to a time of prayer.