The Abandoned Pulpit — E.A. Johnston

Finney's Historic Pulpit

Years ago, when I was doing my research on my biography of the life and ministry of Azahel Nettleton, and I was visiting a certain town in western New York, I came across an old historic church that was 256 years old, and it was in this church that Charles Finney preached.

I had a fellow evangelist with me who was helping me conduct my research of historical revivals and the men God used in those outpourings of his spirit in the land. And as we stood before this old church, the front door was unlocked, so we walked on in looking for the pastor, but he wasn't there.

So we took our own tour of that old church. And down in the basement, we came upon a room where there was the old pulpit of the church. There, to our amazement, in a corner, stood a beautiful mass of hand-carved wooden pulpit.

This was Finney's pulpit, the one he had preached from. And we stood there in awe, looking at it, running our hands over that exquisite carved wood, thinking about how Finney had thundered forth from it.

The Abandoned Pulpit and the Modern Church

But now, it was just an old abandoned pulpit that stood in disuse, collecting dust. And up above us was the sanctuary of the church, where stood a modern plexiglass pulpit. And that is the situation in our churches today, friends.

We have standing in a modern pulpit, plexiglass preachers who were teachers instead of preachers, professionals instead of prophets. And we have convinced ourselves that all is well, so long as we are running 3 ,000 on Sunday.

Our success in ministry is measured by brick and mortar and numerical additions. And we have lost our way while the world goes to hell around us. In the book of Jeremiah, in chapter 6 and verse 16, the Word of God states, Thus saith the Lord, Stand ye in the ways, and see, and ask for the old paths, where is the good way, and walk therein, and ye shall find rest for your souls.

Returning to the Old Paths Through Revival History

Listen, friends, it is high time in this country where the devil has the highway and atheism abounds in the youth of our land to go follow the footprints of the traditions of our fathers and go study what God did through surrendered men like David Brainerd and Jonathan Edwards and George Whitfield and a Charles Finney and a D .L. Moody and a Sam Jones and a Mordecai Hamm and see how God used them to turn entire towns upside down with revival.

And in our day of moral chaos in society and perversion in the land and sad spiritual declension in the church and gross apostasy within our denominations, it is high time to go on a search for the old gospel pulpit and dust it off and carry it up and place it prominently in our sanctuary so we can stand in it with authority and once again preach a God-centered gospel of the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ and pray that God will send us some prophets to occupy those grand old pulpits where men once stood full of the Holy Ghost and didn't fear man but only feared God as they preached with power from on high and thundered, thus saith the Lord.

The Full Counsel of God and the Doctrines of Salvation

Preachers who were called of God to preach the Word of God and who were anointed with the Spirit of God they preached with the Bible in one hand and a stick of dynamite in the other. Men who called sin black and hell hot.

Faithful men who preached the full counsel of God of the great doctrines of the gospel of ruin, redemption, repentance, and regeneration where they preached that salvation was a complete surrender to Jesus as Lord that if you wanted him you couldn't cut him in half, you had to take him in all his offices, both priest and king and from those old grand old pulpits these fiery prophets warned men and women and boys and girls about the dangers of damnation in a devil's hell and that a future judgment awaited all mankind where one day common every mother's son will give an account of himself to a thrice holy God.

Repentance, the Great Commission, and the Power of the Gospel

Let us forget and forsake the nonsense of standing as teachers at plexiglass pulpits with an easy-to-believe gospel that can't save a flea, much less a hardened sinner and let us fall to our faces to repent of our sins and ask God's forgiveness on us for missing the mark of fulfilling the Great Commission and let us go on a search for the old paths where we can preach once more a gospel of the glory of God that has power to save.

Revival or Ruin

Time is running out. It's time we quit playing with the marbles of the world and get serious with God. God gets serious with those who get serious with him. Listen, friends, it's revival or ruin. Heaven help us all.