Asahel Nettleton Second Great Awakening — E.A. Johnston

Our subject today, friends, is Azahel Nettleton and the Second Great Awakening. It's important that we study figures in the past whom God used in a mighty way in seasons of revival. When I was conducting my research on my definitive biography on Azahel Nettleton, I traveled through three states and visited 60 locations where revival had occurred under Nettleton's powerful preaching during the Second Great Awakening.

Asahel Nettleton’s Role in the Second Great Awakening

Some of you may ask, who was Azahel Nettleton? He was the primary figure of the Second Great Awakening, not Charles Finney. In the same way, Whitefield was the primary figure of the First Great Awakening and not John Wesley.

History has a way of rewriting itself sometimes. But anyway, Nettleton has been greatly neglected over the years. Many do not even know who he is. So I was encouraged to write this biography by my friend, Richnall Roberts, which I did.

And I ended up with two volumes of manuscript. And both Richnall Roberts and Ian Murray convinced me to whittle it down to about one volume, which is between 600 and 700 pages, which now revival literature has published.

The Need to Study Revival Preachers and Their Doctrine

But it is very important we study men like Nettleton because we need to find out what kind of doctrines they preached to see why God blessed them so mightily in seasons of revival. I remember I was standing at the funeral of Dr. Stephen F. Olford and I was talking to Adrian Rogers.

And Adrian Rogers looked me in the eye and he said, Do you know what concerns me? And I said, No, Dr. Rogers, what concerns you? And with a very solemn tone, he crossed his arms in front of his chest and he said, What concerns me is I see God calling up men like Sidlow Baxter and Stephen Olford.

And I look around and I don't see any comeuppers. And I said, Well, that concerns me too, Dr. Rogers. And that was over a decade ago, friends. And I look around today and there's a great dearth of good preaching.

It's very important we study revival. I want to look at observations that were eyewitness accounts of Nettleton. The first is from Francis Whaling. Francis Whaling was the pastor and educator and president of Brown College.

And his own life is worthy of careful study. He encountered Nettleton in the midst of revival at Union College in Schenectady, New York. I had spent a great deal of time at Union College in the archives there.

And anyway, it was at this time the evangelist was at his height of physical powers and popularity as a revival preacher. And this account is from a revival that happened in the summer of 1819. And it was during one of the powerful movements of the Second Great Awakening.

Francis Whaling’s Eyewitness Account of Nettleton’s Revival Preaching

I want to read Francis Whaling's comments on Azahel Nettleton at this time, friends. It's very important we study what he has to say. About this time, all that region was overspread by revival of religion, especially through the labors of the Reverend Azahel Nettleton.

It extended to Schenectady and entered the college. There was a powerful impression made upon the students, and many of them were converted. The occasion was blessed to me in awakening my conscience and recalling me to my duty.

I labored as well as I knew how in the promotion of the work and saw with delight a great change in the moral character of the young man. Nettleton was among the most effective preachers I have ever known.

I never heard logic assumed so a track of a form or produced so decisive an effect. When reasoning on any of the great doctrines in Romans, for instance, election, the utter depravity of man, the necessity of regeneration, or the necessity of atonement, his manner was often Socratic.

He would commence with what must be conceded by everyone present then by a series of questions, each deliberately considered and not suffer to pass away until the speaker and hearer gave the same answer.

His opponents would often find themselves face to face with an absurdity so glaring that notwithstanding the solemnity of the scene, the hearer could hardly escape the disposition to laugh at himself for holding a belief that appeared so utterly untenable.

Nettleton’s Dependence on Prayer and Pastoral Instruction

He was, in an unusual degree, obedient to impressions received in answer to prayer. I believe he never went to a place unless he received an intimation that he had a duty to discharge there, and he rarely visited a place where revival did not follow him.

In conversing with persons under conviction, he exhibited a knowledge of human nature almost intuitive, nor was it merely with awakened sinners that his preaching was remarkably successful. It was his habit, when he could stay long enough in a neighborhood, to collect the converts and explain to them the doctrines of the gospel, point out to them their danger, and then to build them up in faith before he left them.

Nettleton’s Manner in the Pulpit

In preaching, his countenance beamed with a holy earnestness such as befitted one sent directly from God as an ambassador to man, and at this time he rarely entered the pulpit or preached in the daytime.

He preferred a vestry or a schoolhouse, and if he spoke in the body of the church, he addressed the audience from the deacon's seat or the platform in front of the pulpit. His manner was quiet, especially at the commencement, his voice grave and deep-toned.

His whole aspect was that of a man who had just come from intimate communion with God. He never used notes, although I believe he sometimes wrote out some of his sermons and rarely employed ornament of any kind.

He would stand up, throw on a red bandana, a handkerchief over his left arm, and in tones varying but little from those of earnest conversation, would sway an audience as the trees of the forest are moved by a mighty wind.

A Second Eyewitness Account of Nettleton’s Ministry

Well, I want to read us another excerpt from an eyewitness account, France, that was published in the New York Observer in 1820, and it pretty much sums up Asahel Nettleton and his manner in the pulpit and the doctrines that he preached.

Let me read this to us now at this time. They said he was not eloquent, and in the usual acceptation of the word, he was not. He generally chose the plainest subjects, preached doctrinally as well as experimentally, and his object being only to do good, he urged his positions with great force, not withholding repetitions in many instances for the sake of greater effect.

But they said he was not eloquent, and this was the impression under which I sat down to hear him for the first time. It was a season of great interest in the memorable winter of 1820 to 1821, when a revival was being experienced, and it did appear as if the mind of a whole population was moved by an unseen and awful influence from above.

A company of young ministers had come together, hoping to learn something from the veteran evangelist in relation to their professional duties, but he scarcely told us anything. He was nervous and exhausted and seemed really ill.

Well, I remember his appearance. He sat by the open fire, got off his shoes and roasted his feet, took some perlash and cider, and finally went to bed. After tea, however, he seemed more revived, and we went to the evening meeting together.

It was known that Mr. Nettleton was expected to preach, and almost the entire population were seen assembling. After sleighload arrived, some of them, to my knowledge, from a distance of not less than eight miles and not the most busy fair or parade day ever exhibited more zeal.

Tempered, however, with solemnity and the strictest regard to order, Mr. Nettleton was remarkable for the pains he always took to keep his audience as still as possible. I've seen him spend half an hour in packing them away in a closely crowded schoolhouse for this purpose.

But to proceed, I watched for the effect of this appearance of things upon our friend and found he was not insensible to it more than any of us. As he walked up the middle aisle to his little temporary desk under the pulpit and saw the waiting masses on either side, I could observe his nerves to strengthen at every step.

He took his place, gave out the 39th of the village hymns, and made his prayer. It was short, hesitating, and very solemn. It seemed as if he was weighing every word and seeking to express exactly what he felt he needed from the great God and nothing else.

Nettleton’s Sermon on the Burning of Sodom

Then he took his text from Genesis on the burning of Sodom, and it seemed to me admirably appropriate. Many had already been awakened in our congregation, and some were rejoicing in hope. But there was a lingering with others.

I saw a sort of pause in the work, and we feared it was about to decline. The preacher probably knew this, and his object appeared to be the start, to start these lingerers anew, and by the grace of God, to carry the work further.

It could be surmised how he would treat the subject in view of such a state of things. He'd first run over the whole history. I remember his introductory remark. He said, God does not always speak by words.

And as soon as coming around to the same idea again, he said, God, I say, does not always speak in words. It was the more impressive language of God's acts to which he was about to direct us. And then he went on to describe the terrible fate of the cities of the plain.

He gave us their character, the forbearance of God towards them, the visit of the angels, and their treatment by the sons of Belial, the scoffing of the sons-in-law, all spiritualized and applied as he went along.

And he approached his more immediate object after infinite trouble and strangely overcome reluctance, the Lord being merciful unto them, the family lot are at length without the walls of the city. And now, said the speaker, turning to sinners, now ye who are determined to remain behind, I have no more to say to you.

And he waved his arms with an abandon gesture backwards until it did seem they felt themselves given up and almost hopeless. I say, I have no more to do with you. My concern is with those who are out of the city and on the plains.

And then with a look and voice and manner indicating the deepest feeling, he repeated his text. Escape for thy life, look not behind thee, neither stay thou all in the plain. Escape to the mountain, lest thou be consumed.

It may not be imagined, perhaps, the effect of this announcement and his further prosecution of it. His object, evidently, was to show awakened sinners the danger of delay or any pause or looking back even for a moment.

I remember one remarkable expression. The sinner that looks back in such circumstances said he doesn't know what he does. He rocks an infant giant. And then he described Lot's wife until it was an absolute reality before our minds.

She began to run as well as others, but she began to hesitate. She began to doubt, perhaps, whether it could all be true. She liked to see how the city looked now. She would just look over her shoulder and run still.

She tried when suddenly she was struck, stock and stiff, by a bolt from heaven. And we seemed to see a cold, straight pillar of salt standing before us. These are not imaginings of my own, nor did it on that occasion seem at all extravagant in the speaker.

The fact was it was dramatic. We were all in for it, and the Master Spirit carried us on at pleasure. Thus he drove the trembling fugitives across the plain. The little hill was reached at length, and then rejoicing in deliverance, all this happy experience was made to body forth like a rejoicing in the recently converted sinner.

The preacher had said he would do nothing more to do with those who remained in the city, but he did have a word more to say concerning them, and it was on this wise. Abraham is made to get up to the place where he had stood before the Lord, and he sees that burning, when all the smoke of the city went up as a furnace.

A hundred times have I heard this scene described or attempted to be described, but only now had I seen it made a reality. We saw the beautiful sunlight falling for the last time on those doomed towers, the overdrawing noon cloud, the arrest, the consternation of the godless inhabitants, the heavens riding over their heads, the savage lightnings, the bursting earth, and the sheets of fire and brimstone descending from God out of heaven.

All these were made to pass in awful vividness, and when the speaker said that, all this was so that we might see the evidence of it at any time. If visiting the scorched shores of the Dead Sea, I found myself actually looking out into the night as if expecting to see the conflagration.

Many, I doubt not, in that awestruck congregation turned in the same direction, all heads turned to the windows, and at all events the object of the sermon was evidently attained. Some, on that memorable night, who we have reason to believe fled for refuge to the hope set before them, the work received a new impulse, and the next day we found several new cases of anxious inquiry.

Nettleton’s Doctrinal Preaching and the Need for Revival

In consequence of what I saw this evening, I changed my mind with regard to his being eloquent for what is eloquence but that which has the effect of eloquence. Well, friends, it's critically important that we study men like Ezehiel Nettleton and look at how he was used of God during a season of spiritual awakening in the land, during the second great awakening.

It's important that we do our own research, read the necessary books, read their sermons. I highly recommend to you a study of Ezehiel Nettleton's sermons. There's a book out of his complete sermons. I think everybody should read it, and study the doctrines that he preached.

Nettleton preached on man's duty of immediate repentance, and Nettleton preached on man's absolute necessity of a work of regeneration upon their heart. In our sad day, a spiritual declension in the church and an outpouring of filth of immorality in society that's spinning out of control.

We need preachers today anointed by the Spirit of God who preach the great doctrines of God that God has seemed pleased to bless in seasons of revival and pastimes. Oh, how we need a revival today, friends.

How desperately we need the great God Almighty to send forth an outpouring of His great grace upon us in our day. I pray that the Lord will send us effusions of His grace for our day to turn the hearts of sinners back to Him.

Let us now take some time to go to prayer.