Why God Used Mordecai Ham — E.A. Johnston

The Cost of Faithful Gospel Preaching

We are in our revival series of Mightily Used Servants of God, and before we go to our time of prayer, friends, I'd like to peer into the life and ministry of evangelist Mordecai Hamm. I remember having a conversation years ago with an evangelist who stated his desire to be greatly used of God like men of olden days, men like Jonathan Edwards and George Whitefield, Sam Jones, and Mordecai Hamm.

I told this younger evangelist that if he wanted to have the results of men like that, then he needed to preach the messages they preached, but he wouldn't do it. He loved his reputation too much, and he loved the applause of men.

Some preachers today want the results of a George Whitefield or Mordecai Hamm, but they don't want the scars. Listen, friends, if you long for an effectual ministry that is God-owned, then be willing to lose your reputation, be willing to face opposition at every turn, and be willing to suffer the consequences of being on the front line and battle against the enemy.

Too many men in ministry want to stay with the rear guard and wear the uniform and get the recognition, but they don't want to be out on the front line where the fighting is the fiercest and fatalities more numerous.

The missionary Jim Elliott did not mind going to the front line of the battle in his day. He was speared by an Akha Indian while trying to give him the gospel, and he and four of his fellow missionaries died martyrs' deaths at the hands of those whom they were witnessing to.

Elliott had written in the margin of his Bible, He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose. When George Whitefield preached, it was common for his hearers to throw pieces of dead cats at him, rotten eggs, and even stones.

While Whitefield was preaching in the open air in Moorfields outside of London, a man tried to thrust him through with a sword. One time Whitefield was attacked by a madman who forced his way into his bedroom and beat the evangelist about the body with a cane while he lay in his bed.

When Whitefield was preaching in Ireland, he was attacked by a violent mob and stoned. A Lord Stone hit him near his temple and knocked him unconscious, and he would have bled to death had not someone come to his aid and dragged him into the doorway of a house.

And when Whitefield was in Boston years later, he met a minister from Ireland. After the introduction, Whitefield removed his beaver cap. Leaning over, he pointed to a large scar on his forehead and replied, This, sir, is a wound I received while preaching Christ in your country.

But we want the results of Whitefield, but we don't want his scars. Our subject today is the evangelist Mordecai Ham, and the title of my message today, friends, is Why God Used Mordecai Ham. My text is found in the book of Jeremiah.

You can turn in your Bibles there now. We'll be in chapter 1 and verses 4 through 8. Let me read that to us now. Then the word of the Lord came unto me, saying, Before I formed thee in the belly, I knew thee, and before thou camest forth out of the womb, I sanctified thee, and I ordained thee a prophet unto the nations.

Then said I, Ah, Lord God, behold, I cannot speak, for I am a child. But the Lord said unto me, Say not, I am a child, for thou shalt go to all that I shall send thee, and whatsoever I command thee, thou shalt speak.

Be not afraid of their faces, for I am with thee, to deliver thee, saith the Lord. Listen, friends, I believe that a true minister of the gospel is a man whom God has set apart and whom God has called, a man who walks closely with God and who speaks for God and who fears God and not man.

God told the prophet Jeremiah, I ordain thee a prophet unto the nations. God also told Jeremiah, Be not afraid of their faces, but I am afraid too many pastors today, too many evangelists today, are afraid of men's faces and the opinion of men.

The Need for a Divine Call to Ministry

I'll never forget meeting a man who was training to become a pastor. I was in class with him in a preaching school. I asked him how he had decided to become a pastor, and he shrugged his shoulders and replied that he'd spent years as a math teacher, but he never really liked it much.

Then he became an assistant to an electrical engineer, but he got fired from that job. Then he tried a few other occupations, but did not have much luck with them either. So he decided to give being a pastor a try.

I walked away from that conversation thinking to myself, I pity the congregation that ends up with that man as their pastor. Too many men in ministry are there for the wrong reasons already. They are not God-called men.

But Mordecai Ham was a man called to God, to be a preacher of the gospel of the Son of God. A few evangelists have been used of God in the salvation of souls as Mordecai Ham. He fearlessly faced opposition wherever he went, and at times suffered physically for the sake of the gospel.

Ham was pistol-whipped, horse-whipped. He was attacked in the lobby of a hotel from behind him with a chain, and he said it was his Bible that saved him as he used it to cover his head from the slashing attack of the man with the chain.

One time while preaching in Oklahoma, he was preaching a series of messages against atheism, and he received a threatening letter from the president of the American Association for the Advancement of Atheism.

Soon after receiving that letter, Ham parked his car and was walking across a street when an oncoming automobile struck him down and dragged him for half a block. Ham suffered a fractured skull, and he almost died.

For six months, he was hospitalized and taken care of by 14 doctors, and during that time he saw double. He later found out that other men who had taken a stand against that atheist group had been the victims of strange automobile accidents as well.

A Mordecai Ham related of this experience, I was struck down by an automobile a few days after I had announced that I was out to clean up on the atheists. Another time while preaching in a Texas town against the whiskey sellers, Ham was subdued by a gang of men and physically dragged out of town on the end of a rope.

One of the men carried a sack of feathers, another man carried a bucket of tar, and while they were ready to torn feather the evangelist and hang Ham from a tree, the local sheriff called the cavalry to Ham's rescue.

Soldiers escorted Ham to the train station and kept their rifles pointed on the crowd while Ham boarded the train. A law officer was assigned to Ham for protection, and as they rode out of that Texas town on the train, the lawman asked Mordecai Ham, How do you keep so calm in the face of such strong opposition and danger?

I want what you have, sir. What must I do to be saved? And I have a photograph of the town where Mordecai Ham was preaching, and in that photo is a 20-foot high pile of stills that were turned in by moonshiners under Ham's powerful preaching.

The Transforming Power of Ham's Evangelistic Ministry

Mordecai Ham saw over 300 ,000 converts in his 50-plus years of itinerant ministry friends. His powerful preaching was known to shake an entire town for God. When Ham was preaching in Burlington, North Carolina in 1925, the Burlington mayor wrote the following letter to the local newspaper.

From our police and fire department down and up, the influence of the meeting has been wonderfully displayed. Many haven't been saved in these departments. There has never been such a spiritual awakening in our community.

The police courts show a wonderful decrease in crime, and arrests for criminal offenses have greatly decreased, and minor offenses have ceased almost entirely. And listen to this, friends. A man came to Mordecai Ham at the close of one of his meetings and asked, Didn't you tell us that if we would close our business and come to the tabernacle during the morning services that our business would improve?

The evangelist answered affirmatively, Well, the man said, my business hasn't improved. I'm the city jailer, and I don't have a single border. It was common under the preaching of Mordecai Ham for the morality of an entire town to be transformed.

Crime decreased, taverns closed, places of prostitution closed for lack of customers, and often the worst sinner in a town was the first object of Ham's attention. He would go after the biggest sinner in town, and God would convert him, and Ham would sit that person on the front row of his meetings as a living testimony to the power of the gospel.

One time, Ham learned where the most wicked man in town lived, and he chased him into a cornfield where the man tried to hide. Finding the man, Ham pulled him out by the ankles from the stalks of corn and told him to repent of his sins, or he was going to ask God to kill him.

The man came under conviction of sin under Ham's preaching and was wonderfully saved. Well, you might ask, friends, what was his secret? Mordecai Ham preached the unfurnished gospel of the Son of God.

Repentance, Faith, and the Lordship of Christ

That man is born under a curse, and because of his rune nature, there is nothing in man which makes him acceptable to God. No amount of good works can help him, nor good character. And because man is a sinner, he must exercise repentance toward God and faith in Jesus Christ.

Ham's double-fisted themes were man's duty of repentance and the absolute lordship of Jesus Christ. Listen, brother preacher, if you want the results of Mordecai Ham, then be willing to pay the price.

You must preach the hard doctrines of the gospel that Ham preached and not be afraid of man or the opinion of man. You must accept persecution and even personal attacks on your character and even on your body.

We cannot have the same results that evangelists of former days had without preaching the same messages they preached. We must be willing to live a life in complete and utter surrender to the Holy Spirit and the lordship of Jesus Christ, and we must forsake this world and its pleasures to spend the necessary time in the Word of God and with the God of the Word.

I remember Leonard Ravenhill saying, many men want my mantle, but few are willing to sit in my sackcloth and ashes. And that's true, friends. We need God-called men to do a God-sized task, which is the salvation of souls.

If God does not attend our preaching with His power, we might as well be talking to the wall. If we want to depopulate hell and even make the demons tremble, then we must stay on the front line of the battle where the fighting is the hottest and the risk the fiercest.

We must walk closely with our God and live lives unattached to this world and its honors. We must preach the full counsel of God and not fear the opinion of men. Souls are at stake. They perish by the minute and drop into a devil's hell.

We must warn men and women and boys and girls of their great danger of dying in their sins and being cast into hell forever. Oh, friends, ask the God of the Bible to raise up a Mordecai Ham for our day, a man who does not fear man but only fears God.

Mordecai Ham's Influence on Billy Graham

And before we go to our time of prayer, I wanted to mention one more fact about the evangelist Mordecai Ham. It was under a tent meeting while Ham was preaching the unfurnished gospel in the power of the Holy Ghost that a young Billy Graham was saved.

Billy Graham and Mordecai Ham became the best of friends. And one day, Billy Graham visited Ham and asked for his advice and ministry. Ham thought about it, looked Billy Graham in the eye, and then replied, Billy, whatever you do, don't ever lose your sweetheart love for Jesus.

Recovering a Devoted Love for Jesus

Let me ask you, friend, and let me ask you this before God, have you lost your sweetheart love for Jesus? Have you? Be honest. When you wake in the morning, do you think of him first? When you go to bed at night, is he the last one you speak to?

When you go throughout your day, do you walk with him in a vital love relationship? Or is your Bible a closed book when you pray or you rise dry? Oh, dear friend, let us never lose our sweetheart love for the lover of our souls.

Let us go to him now in prayer and ask him to ignite us with a fresh power from on high. Ask the great God of the Bible to stir us to more sacrificial service unto our King. Oh, great God, give us an ounce of Mordecai ham for our day.

Grant us the grace not to fear man. Fill us with your Holy Ghost power. Use us, great God, to bring the lost in. Empower us to be faithful and obedient servants all for your great glory. Amen.