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The year was 1812. America had just declared war on Great Britain in June and lost its first battle in October. In the midst of that climate, a young, unimpressive minister on his way to an assignment in New York stopped at a church in the community of South Britain, Connecticut. When he was invited to preach, no one could have anticipated the impact his ministry would have, not only on this small church, but also on all the East Coast over the next three decades.
As this visiting preacher spoke, the congregation became aware that something unusual was happening. His probing questions seemed to penetrate each heart, peeling back layer after layer, showing the reality of their sin. Many in the congregation wondered how he knew them so well. As he continued, he warned the audience of their desperate need for repentance and the danger of any delay. Many in the congregation were brought to a deep conviction of sin.
After the message, the congregation dismissed without any formal invitation. They returned home to deal with God regarding their sin. During the week, conversion came mightily to many. The revival that began that week spread throughout New England, spilled over into New York, and resulted in a deep work of regeneration that lasted until the mid-1800s. During that span of time, God graciously used this man to bring more people to Christ than any man since George Whitefield came to America a half century earlier. Who was this man?
Mention the names of Finney, Moody, Sunday, or Graham and visions of great evangelistic ministries are brought to mind. But mention Asahel Nettleton and few will have any idea who you are talking about. Except for being remembered as the one who opposed Finney at the New Lebanon Conferences, even most histories fail to tell of the work of revival under Nettleton.
Asahel Nettleton is a significant figure in the history of revivals who has been sadly forgotten. Yet his ministry might have been one of the most effective ever. Though he never pastored a church, never wrote a book, or led an evangelistic organization, Nettleton’s preaching led directly to the conversion of well over 30,000 people at a time when the entire nation’s population was only nine million. Those figures, though large by comparison to most evangelists, are even more startling when one considers that his ministry encompassed little more than Connecticut and its bordering states.
Nettleton’s significance in history is affirmed by his own contemporaries. Those who had heard such giants as Edwards and Whitefield counted Nettleton’s ministry as unusually successful. In 1844, The New York Observer said that Nettleton was “one of the most extraordinary preachers of the gospel with whom God has ever blessed this country.” The New York Evangelist agreed saying, “Few men, since the apostolic days, have been honored with such a signal success in preaching the word, and in the conversion of sinners as he. . . .” Bennett Tyler said of him, “We do not claim for Dr. Nettleton the rank of Whitefield; but he stands very high among those who have ‘converted sinners from the very error of their ways, saved souls from death, and hidden a multitude of sins.’” Even Lyman Beecher, who had both Nettleton and Finney in his pulpits, said of Nettleton, “Considering the extent of his influence, I regard him as beyond comparison, the greatest benefactor which God has given to this nation.”
Perhaps what is most significant about Nettleton’s ministry is not the shear number of conversions but the number who remained faithful to Christ many years later. Most evangelists today would be delighted to “find” even a small percentage of their converts, much less to see them living for the Lord. Nettleton’s converts were surprisingly solid. For example, of the eighty-four converts in an 1818 revival at Rocky Hill, Connecticut, all eighty-four had remained faithful according to their pastor’s report twenty-six years later. Similarly, only three spurious conversions out of eighty-two professors were noted in another pastor’s report on a revival in Ashford, Connecticut.
In contrast, toward the end of his life, “after reflecting on the many who had claimed conversion [under his ministry] but had since fallen away,” the great evangelist Charles Finney “had mixed thoughts on the genuine results of his work.” He was not alone. In a letter to Finney, one of his co-workers raised some interesting questions about their work…
Let us look over the fields where you and I have labored as ministers and what is now their normal state? What was their state within three months after we left them? I have visited and revisited many of these fields and groaned in spirit to see the sad, frigid, carnal, contentious state into which the churches have fallen and fallen very soon after we first departed from among them.
Nettleton’s ministry was decidedly different from that of Finney, not only with regard to conversions, but also with regard to the lasting impact upon the communities which he visited. One contemporary pastor, Bennett Tyler, noted the differences between the revivals of Finney and Nettleton…
These revivals were not temporary excitements, which like a tornado, sweep through a community, and leave desolations behind them; but they were like showers of rain, which refresh the dry and thirsty earth, and cause it to bring forth “herbs meet for them by whom it is dressed.” These fruits were permanent. By them the churches were not only enlarged, but beautified and strengthened; and a benign influence was exerted upon the community around.
Although Nettleton and Finney were contemporaries, Finney has eclipsed Nettleton completely. Why has one of such significance been forgotten in our generation? And what makes his ministry so different from the evangelistic ministries seen today?
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