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Source: https://www.sermonindex.net/speakers/ea-johnston/the-second-great-awakening/
We are in the Evangelism Awakening Revival Institutes and if you'll turn in your handouts to session 3, the Second Great Awakening, our focus today is the period of revival known as the Second Great Awakening.
And its two most prominent preachers were Azahel Nettleton and Trolls Finney. Many of you are familiar with Trolls Finney, but you are quite unfamiliar with the name of Azahel Nettleton. Nettleton was the primary figure of the Second Great Awakening and if you want to learn more about him, I refer you to my definitive biography on his life entitled Azahel Nettleton, Revival Preacher and it can be ordered from Reformation Heritage Books.
It's 520 pages long and it covers the theological differences between Finney and Nettleton as well as the downgrade that occurred in New England theology and how the new measures of Finney has impacted our churches in our own day.
I was assisted by Dr. J. I. Packer in my research and had some long conversations with him on the New England theology and Ian Murray was helpful in my understanding of the period known as the Second Great Awakening as we discussed that and it was Richard Owen Roberts that encouraged me to take on the immense task of a thorough and up to date biography on Azahel Nettleton.
What I have learned from men better than me I pass on to you friends. In Jeremiah 6 .16 we read, 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.
It is critically important for us today to study historical revivals and to learn from them. We need to learn how to recognize them, how to pray for them, and how to preach revival. There is a vast difference between preaching about revival and preaching for revival in our day of moral decline in society and spiritual declension in the church.
There is a great need for revival in the church and spiritual awakening in the land. People perish by the minute into the torments of everlasting hell. Our pulpits today are far removed from the urgency of the hour and the majority of our pulpits today are filled with teachers instead of preachers.
Teaching informs, preaching transforms. And if we long to see revival in our day, friends, then we need to heed the Prophet Jeremiah's advice to seek the old paths. We must preach the full counsel of God and hold up the great doctrines of ruin, redemption, regeneration, and repentance to this world of godless pagans.
I will read some extracts from both Finney and Nettleton so we may increase our understanding of revival in our day. Until we realize that the current crisis in the church is far more serious than the current crisis in society, we will only remain in our spiritual lethargy.
The church sleeps the sleep of death on pillows of conformity and compromise, and a heaven-sent revival is our only hope. Therefore, it is imperative that we learn as much as we can about revival so we can intelligently promote it in our day.
Charles Finney's assessment of the church in his day is applicable to the worldly church of our day. Finney observed, the church is filled with hypocrites who never were told to give up the world. No one ever showed them that unless they entirely consecrated themselves to Christ, time, talents, and influence, they would never get to heaven.
Many think they can be Christians and yet float along through life using their time and property for themselves, only given a little now and then to save appearances or because it is convenient. It is a sad mistake.
If they don't use their energies for God, when they die they will find hell at the end of the path they pursued. Well, I agree with that assessment from Finney. We have a worldly church today indeed, and it needs revival.
As we study revival, we must be aware that revival comes through prayer. God is sovereign in sending revival, but he seems to delight in sacrificial, fervent, and desperate prayer. The psalmist cried, Give ear, O shepherd of Israel, thou that leadest Joseph like a flock, thou that dwellest between the cherubims, shine forth, before Ephraim and Benjamin and Manasseh, stir up thy strength, and come and save us, turn us again, O God, and cause thy face to shine, and we shall be saved.
Jonathan Goforth saw powerful revivals in China when he was a missionary there, and Goforth had studied the writings of Charles Finney and was deeply familiar with him. Goforth wrote, Finney depended more upon the prayer of Fathers Nash and Clary to bring down Holy Ghost revival than upon his own resistless logic.
So accustomed are we today to the Laodicean condition of the church that the awe-pervading influence of prayer in Finney's time amazes us. Well, that was Jonathan Goforth's assessment, and I agree with it.
And to add to the urgent need of prayer for revival is the power that attends our prayers. Listen, friends, there can be only one answer to the question, Why has the church lost her power? The answer lies in the reality that the church has forsaken the third person of the Trinity, replacing him with programs, money, and man-centered methodologies.
Our reliance is one of self rather than reliance upon the Holy Spirit to empower us to pray, preach, and witness with an endowment from on high. In Jude, we are exhorted to earnestly contend for the faith.
Christianity was never meant to be a spectator enterprise. If the church will not defend His holy name, then the Almighty must. God will either pour out His blessings in revival to defend His holy name, or He will pour out His judgments upon mankind to avenge His holy name.
He will either be defending or avenging to show forth His glory and remind mankind He alone is the Sovereign Ruler of all. Well, I want to take this time, friends, to read an extract of the Second Great Awakening taken from Charles Finney's memoir.
I want you to get a sense of the power of God in a meeting. This particular account occurred in 1824 in the town of Antwerp, New York. Here now are Finney's words. I must now give account of my labors and the results at Antwerp, a village north of Evan Mills.
I arrived there the first time in April and found that no religious services of any kind were held in that town. In passing around the village, I heard a vast amount of profanity. I thought I had never heard so much in any place that I had ever visited.
It seemed as if the men, in playing ball upon the green, and in every business place that I stepped into, were all cursing and swearing and damning each other. I felt as if I had arrived upon the borders of hell.
I had a kind of awful feeling, I recollect, as I passed around the village on Saturday. The very atmosphere seemed to be poisoned, and a kind of terror took possession of me. I gave myself to prayer on Saturday, and finally urged my petition till this answer came.
Be not afraid to speak, and hold not that peace, for I am with thee, and no man shall sit on thee to hurt thee, for I have much people in this city. I will pause here in the narrative, friends. Notice how Finney took the time to get familiar with the area he was to labor in, and he gave it to God in prayer.
He is eventually asked by an aged man of the town to preach on a certain day in a schoolhouse. We will now pick up the story there. I had taken no thought with regard to a text upon which to preach, but waited to see the congregation, as I was in the habit of doing in those days, before I selected a text.
As soon as I had done praying, I rose from my knees, and said, Up, get ye out of this place, for the Lord will destroy the city. I said, I did not recollect where the text was, but I told them very nearly where they could find it, and then went on to explain it.
I said that there was such a man as Abraham, and also who he was, and that there was such a man as Lot, and who he was. Their relations to each other, their separating from each other, on account of differences between their herdsmen, and that Abraham took the hill country, and Lot settled in the vale of Sodom.
I then told them how exceedingly wicked Sodom became, and what abominable practices they fell into. I told them that the Lord decided to destroy Sodom, and visited Abraham, and informed him what he was about to do, that Abraham prayed to the Lord to spare Sodom, if he found so many righteous there, and the Lord promised to do so for their sakes, that then Abraham besought him to save it for a certain less number, and the Lord said he would spare it for their sakes, that he kept on reducing the number of righteous persons to ten, and God promised him that if he found ten righteous persons in the city, he would spare it.
Abraham made no further request, and Jehovah left him, but it was found that there was but one righteous person there, and that was Lot, and Lot went and spake unto his sons-in-law, which married his daughters, and said, Up, get ye out of this place, for the Lord will destroy the city, but it seemed as one that mocked unto his sons-in-law.
While I was relating these facts, I observed the people looked as if they were angry, many the men were in their shirtsleeves, and they looked at each other, and at me, as if they were ready to pitch into me, and chastise me for something on the spot.
I saw their strange and unaccountable looks, and could not understand what I was saying that had offended them. However, it seemed to me that their anger rose higher and higher as I continued the narrative.
As soon as I had finished the narrative, I turned upon them and said, that I understood that they never had a religious meeting in that place, and that, therefore, I had a right to take it for granted, and was compelled to take it for granted that they were an ungodly people.
I pressed that home upon them with more and more energy, with my heart full to bursting. I had not spoken to them in the strain of direct application. I should think more than a quarter of an hour, when all, at once, in awful solemnity, seemed to settle down upon them, and a something flashed over the congregation, a kind of shimmering, as if there were some agitation in the atmosphere itself.
The congregation began to fall from their seats, and they fell in every direction, and cried for mercy. If I had had a sword in each hand, I could not have cut them off their seats as fast as they fell.
Indeed, nearly the whole congregation were either on their knees or prostrate, I should think, in less than two minutes from this first shock that fell upon them. Everyone prayed for himself, who was able to speak at all.
I, of course, was obliged to stop preaching, for they no longer paid any attention to me. Well, we will end our session there, friend, and prepare for session four.