How God Saved a Big Sinner — E.A. Johnston

Eyewitness Accounts and the Role of Prayer in Revival

Eyewitness accounts always impress me, especially when they come to revival. When I study revival, if I can find an eyewitness account, it adds great depth to the understanding and record of that revival.

Prayer often played a significant role in revival. Before Charles Finney would preach in a town, he would seek out praying people in that town and ask them to pray for the coming meetings. Finney would bathe the town in prayer, often before he even arrived, by sending his co-laborer, Daniel Nash, ahead of him to begin prayer in the town.

We get a sense of this, friends, from the following extract from Finney's memoirs, of an antidote from Charles Finney's daughter, Helen, who wrote the following. Until, within a year passed, an old gentleman has lived next door to us, who was a little boy, living at Evan Mills.

When Father first went there to preach, he said to me, Your father stopped at my father's house when he came to preach at Evan Mills. I was a little fellow, and had never seen a minister. I imagined him to be a dreadful, solemn being, before whom I would not dare to speak or laugh.

And I trembled when he rode up to the house and came in. But a more surprised youngster never lived. Here came, almost bounding in, a young, handsome, bright young man, greeting my father and mother and all of us with the utmost cordiality.

And he was taking off his overcoat, and he said, Any praying women around here, Brother Hopkins? My father reflected a moment, and replied, Yes, I believe there is one, at the other end of the village.

Well, come, let us go and see her. And thrusting his arm in his coat again, he started out at once, without sitting down at all. The old gentleman went on to say that there was never anything like the state that town was in by the next night.

Now, I like that story, friends, because it shows the importance of prayer in regard to revival and the conversion of sinners. When you study revival, you will learn that often God would take the most notorious sinner in a place and save them as a trophy of grace for his glory.

Charles Finney's Account of a Notorious Sinner

I want to relate a true story to you today, friends, about how God saved a big sinner in a certain town during the revival under the ministry of Charles Finney in 1824 in Evan Mills in western New York.

This account is taken verbatim from the memoirs of Charles Finney. Finney's memoirs are 700 pages long, and most of you won't take the time to read it. But for the last 28 years, I have read and re-read this remarkable autobiography of Finney so many times that every time I read it, the embers on the altar of my heart are rekindled once again.

God was working powerfully during the Second Great Awakening through his human instruments like Azahiel Middleton and Charles Finney. In this particular account, we see how God saved the biggest sinner in town where Finney was laboring.

Pay attention to the story, friends, and get the wax out of your ears and listen to how God has moved in former times during outpourings of revival. Hear now are the words of Charles Finney. At this place I again saw Father Nash, the man who prayed with his eyes open at the meeting of Presbytery when I was licensed, and that he was taken with inflamed eyes, and for several weeks he was shut up in a dark room.

He could neither read nor write, and gave himself up almost entirely to prayer as I learned. He had a terrible overhauling in his whole Christian experience, and as soon as he was able to see with a double black veil before his face, he sallied forth to labor for souls.

When he came to Evan Mills, he was full of the power of prayer. He was another man altogether from what he had been at any former period of his Christian life. I found that he had a praying list, as he called it, of the names of persons whom he had made subjects of prayer every day, and sometimes many times a day.

In praying with him, in hearing him pray in meeting, I found that his gift of prayer was wonderful and his faith almost miraculous. There was a man by the name of Dresser who kept a little tavern in a corner of the village, whose house was the resort of all the opposers of the revival.

The Conversion of Dresser Through Persistent Intercession

The ballroom was a place of blasphemy, and he himself a most profane, ungodly, abusive man. He went railing about the streets, respecting the revival, and would take particular pains to swear and blaspheme if he saw a Christian for the sake of hurting his feelings.

One of the young converts lived across this way from him, and he told me that he meant to sell and move out of that neighborhood, because every time he was out of doors and Dresser saw him, he would come out and swear and curse and say everything he could to wound his feelings.

He had not, I think, been to any of our meetings. Of course, he was ignorant of the great truths of religion, and despised the whole Christian enterprise. Father Nash heard us speak of this Mr. Dresser as a hard case, and immediately put his name down upon his praying list.

He remained in town a day or two, and went his way, having in view another field of labor. Not many days subsequent to this, as we were holding an evening meeting, with a very crowded house, who should come in but this notorious Dresser?

His entrance created a considerable movement and excitement 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 retired. I knew his countenance, and kept my eye upon 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 his seat. It was very uneasy. He soon arose in trembling, for he trembled from head to foot. I asked if he might say a few words. I told him that he might. He then proceeded to make one of the most heartbroken confessions that I almost ever heard.

His confession seemed to cover the whole ground of his treatment of God, and of his treatment of Christians, and of the revival, and of everything good. This thoroughly broke up the fallow ground in many hearts.

It was the most powerful means that could have been used, just then, to give an impetus to the work. A dresser soon came out, and professed to hope, abolished all the revelry and profanity of his ballroom.

And from that time, as long as I stayed there, I know not how much longer they held a meeting, a prayer meeting, in his ballroom nearly every night. Well, I like that story, don't you, friend? It's amazing what God can do when he goes to work.

A Call to Pray for the Unconverted

Let me ask you, friend. When you came to Christ, were you aware of anyone who'd been praying for you? I'm sure there was someone praying for you. Now let me ask you this, friend. Are you presently praying for an unconverted person?

Do you pray for them every day? Do you have a praying list, like Father Nash, with some names on it, whom God has put on your heart to pray for their conversion? If not, how can you be lazy in prayer, and apathetic toward the hell-bound, who are slipping into eternity, all around you, by the minute?