Asahel Nettleton: Serious Christianity

His conversion at 18 years old

1. In Connecticut, Asahel Nettleton was born 21 April 1783 as the second of six children.
2. His father and mother had been baptized as babies, and they did the same with their children.
3. But they were not allowed to take the Lord’s Table because it was not clear they were born again.
4. He memorized the Westminster Catechism as a child.
5. But he was not truly awakened until he was 18 years old.
6. When a pastor preached on being born again, his heart was touched.
7. His thoughts and prayers and fear of being damned went on for about 10 months before he found peace.
8. For his entire life, he feared lying to himself about salvation. 432
9. When someone asked him as an adult if he was saved, he replied, “The most that I have ventured to say respecting myself is, that I think it is possible I may get to heaven.” 30

His training and preparation to be a preacher

1. Though he worked as a farmer with his family, the pressing thought of Hell pulled him to be a missionary along with one of his friends.
2. Around 18 he wrote, “If I might be the means of saving one soul, I should prefer it to all the riches and honours of this world.” 34
3. When reading about William Carey in India, he decided to become a missionary.
4. At 22, he entered Yale College to train for missionary service.
5. A godly pastor who had known Nettleton for years said he was known as being kind and friendly.
6. Throughout his time at Yale, he looked for students he could lead to Christ. 42
7. He even decided not to marry or own property so that he could spend more time serving the Lord. 421
8. After 3 years in college at 25, he stopped early with terrifying doubts about his salvation. 39
9. At this time, his best friend said of him, “I have known him to weep, I may say, by the hour, under an overwhelming sense of his vileness.” 46
10. Though his goal had been for 9 years to be a missionary, he could not go overseas because he owed money to the school. 52

Preaching from church to church

1. A small church in Connecticut called him to preach, not as pastor, just for a few weeks to help them.
2. The church had seen many people truly converted about 70 years earlier, but then excited by numbers, they changed their methods. 56
3. Nettleton saw that good intentions and energy are not enough to keep a church pure.
4. Many evangelists rose up who looked for ways to produce more results.
5. Over 10 years in Connecticut (28-38 years old), many churches asked Nettleton to preach for them.
6. Commonly, he would preach each night for a week or even for a month, 3-5 times during the weeks.
7. His goal was to make sure the church members were regenerated, and not merely nominal Christians.
8. Soon, his presence at a church would draw men from the farms and towns.
9. Once the church was so full that men could be seen listening in the trees and roofs of buildings outside. 170
10. From his first preaching, he saw true conversions in nearly every place.
11. Many churches invited him, but he only went if no announcement was made that he was coming. He wanted no trust or hope in himself.
12. Nettleton always rejected planning dates or promoting meetings.
13. He desired to preach multiple times over several days so that people would have the chance to think, pray, and repent.
14. Outside of preaching meetings, those who were convicted of sin met for prayer and counsel.  
15. He refused any money more than what was needed for food and clothing. 70
16. Commonly, he met with the youth and urged them to be very serious.
17. When he arrived at a new church he urged them to expect nothing from him, but to pray with all their hearts for a revival.
18. The pastors said that his revival meetings were marked by heaviness, conviction, understanding, and humility.
19. In Bridgewater, he had warned the people for a few days to humble themselves, but when he saw them still proud, he left the church with no notice. 89
20. He led many people to Christ in private conversations after the services and in their homes. 295, 300

The conversions

1. In Waterbury, a man who hated God suddenly came to church and was converted.
2. Sometimes, one or two in family were converted, but commonly whole families were saved together.
3. In the church at Torrington in 1816 (33 years old), 17 were converted in August, 9 more in October, and 71 in February! 97
4. In Middleton in 1817, the youth from the church planned to dance on a Saturday. 99Hearing about the dance, Nettleton immediately planned to leave after having preached 3 weeks to them.
   1. But when the youth saw the preacher was leaving they canceled the dance and asked for a sermon instead. A very large number of youth arrived, listened, and were cut by the preaching. Groups of them gathered to pray for humility and faith for hours after the service. This youth service began a great work of God where many were saved over about 6 months.
5. “Did you ever witness 200 sinners, with one accord, in one place, weeping for their sins? … I felt as though I were standing on the verge of the eternal world; while the floor under my feet was shaken by the trembling of anxious souls in view of a judgment to come.” Nettleton in a letter in 1820, 113
6. After preaching for weeks or months, he would commonly take a day or a week to listen to people’s testimonies of salvation. 128
7. Nettleton’s life is a repetition of stories like this over and over for about 25 years.
8. God saved 30,000 men through Nettleton over the years. 17

His manner of preaching

1. Usually he preached 5-7 times per week for decades. 232
2. He preached much on the sinner’s condition as completely lost and hopeless.
3. “It was difficult to say which he made plainest—their danger [of Hell] or their guilt [as sinners].” 376
4. One man described Nettleton’s preaching as “one continued flash of conviction.” 160
5. “In his preaching, his humility was apparent to all.” 162
6. “When he spake of the glories of heaven, it was almost as if he had been there himself.” 162
7. Those who watched him said that his face spoke clearly and his voice sounded like a song though he was always very serious.
8. He always preached from the Bible, but he did not preach verse by verse through books, and he usually focused on sin and judgment.
9. He cut out any story, thought, or truth if it was not aimed at bringing conversions. 176
10. He would use drama when he preached as if he were a sinner lost in Hell, or a believer in Heaven.
11. His preaching was “practical reasoning animated by strong emotion.” 229
12. “His eye, after all, was the master power in his delivery. … He seemed to look every hearer in the face, or, rather, to look into his soul.” 230
13. So far from being the power of Nettleton, the strength of his preaching “was the Holy Spirit poured out on him and his hearers.”
14. The pastor in Taunton said that Nettleton so occupied men with God, that the revival continued without change after he left. 244
15. He expected results not from a single sermon, but from weeks of preaching, then evenings with lectures, and then private conversations.

The Serious Attitude

1. He left one church while about 30 people were still wanting to hear more preaching. “It drove them from all human dependence. Distressing as it is, and cruel as it may seem, it is necessary for them to feel that no arm but God’ can help them.” 120
2. “The distress was so great, and the suppressed sighs and sobs became so loud, that I could scarcely hear my own voice.” 126
3. At the end of a service he said once, “Go away as still as possible. Do not talk by the way, lest you forget your own hearts. Do not ask how you like the preacher; but retire to your closets, bow before God, and give yourselves to Him this night.” 145
4. Most people, he said think they have received Jesus, but in reality they are simply afraid of being thrown into fire. 180
5. “How does the subject of the conviction and conversion of sinners affect your hearts? It is a subject in which God, and Christ, and the Holy Spirit, and saints, and angels, are all interested. All heaven is moved at the repentance of one sinner. And, my hearers, if your hearts are not deeply interested in this subject, it is because you have no claims to the Christian character.” 183
6. He aimed his private conversations and public sermons “to produce silence and self-condemnation, and confine their thoughts to their own lost and ruined state.” 243
7. He felt that when a man is considering salvation, he ought not to spend much time in conversation, but mainly be alone thinking about his soul.
8. In the revivals, Christians “were deeply humbled in view of their past neglects of duty. They mourned over their backslidings, and returned to God with deep contrition.” 323

Sickness

1. For about 10 years, he preached from church to church until at 39, he had a terrible illness.
2. The sickness hurt and sometimes tortured him for the last 22 years of his life often keeping him from preaching.
3. Modern medicine was not yet invented, but Nettleton still wrote while suffering, “Our mercies are greater than our afflictions.” 234
4. Another pastor tried to nurse him, but caught his disease and died.
5. For more than 2 years he could not preach.
6. During this time, he compiled a hymnal and had it published. 238

Problems with Charles Finney

1. In 1826, after 15 years preaching, a new preacher suddenly became very popular in the US, Charles Finney.
2. Lacking both the training and the kindness of Nettleton, Finney developed methods to produce revivals.
   1. Praying for people by name
   
   
   1. Encouraging women to speak publicly
   
   
   1. Asking men to come forward to show their faith
3. This last method was called “the anxious seat” but over time it has been changed slightly to “the altar call.”
4. For years Nettleton had rejected these ideas, but now they were becoming popular in churches in the US.
5. Nettleton met with Finney twice, but he could not persuade him to stop the measures which Nettleton believed were “exceedingly dangerous.”
6. “If the evil be not soon prevented, a generation will arise, inheriting all the [weaknesses] of their leaders… And these evils are destined to be propagated from generation to generation, waxing worse and worse.” 348
7. Though Finney had only been preaching for 3 years and Nettleton for 15, he published a sermon attacking Nettleton.
8. Finney accepted testimonies quickly, but Nettleton saw that a key work of a pastor consists in watching for false conversions.
9. Nettleton saw that Finney’s problem was impatience: Finney wanted results—and big results—immediately.
10. Finney “says not one word by which we can distinguish between true and false zeal, true and false religion.” 360 cf. 367
11. Finney introduced entertaining practices of public prayer. 367
    1. They would tell stories about other people while pretending to pray.
    
    
    1. They would use different voices for a stage effect.
    
    
    1. They would ask for things other than conversion or spirituality.
12. Ultimately, in the new methods, Nettleton was concerned that he saw no emphasis on humility, gentleness, and submission. 368ff

Lessons to learn from Nettleton’s life

1. False assurance is a terrible danger.
   1. When a man thought he was saved without evidence, Nettleton said, “You had better give it up, and seek your salvation in earnest.”
   
   
   1. When another asked, “Do you think there is any hope in my case?” Nettleton would reply, “It is uncertain. Sinners as concerned as you, and perhaps more so, have returned to stupidity.” 307
   
   
   1. “False affections often rise far higher than those that are genuine.” 360
   
   
   1. “Feelings which are not founded on correct theology cannot be right.” 362
   
   
   1. He evidently saw so many people claiming to be Christians, but with no evidence of salvation.
   
   
   1. To cure false assurance, he spoke much of conviction, judgment, and the new birth.
   
   
   1. He saw that entertainment and worldly methods were gimmicks making men feel spiritual without “pure religion.”
   
   
   1. Thus the great message of his life was a pursuit of true, serious, genuine conversion—a salvation that delivers men to Heaven.
2. Our hearts, preaching, and talk must move more and more around the Son of God.
   1. There are many examples of his preaching in this book, but very little reference to the Son of God.
   
   
   1. Even in his own description of his conversion, he says almost nothing about Christ’s work, or his own faith in or love to Jesus.
   
   
   1. Once in Scotland a woman interrupted his sermon saying, “Dear Sir, don’t forget that God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son.” 286
   
   
   1. Even his biographer says that he wished Nettleton had preached Christ more. 175
   
   
   1. This must be why he had no confidence even in his own salvation until the day of his death. 432-433
3. Covenant theology leads to false conversion.
   1. Since many churches held to Covenant Theology, they allowed people to baptize their babies and be members without giving testimonies of faith in Christ. 18
   
   
   1. Nettleton’s whole family was counted as Christian without true faith.
   
   
   1. Others converted by his ministry had counted themselves as true Christians for many years because of their infant baptism.
   
   
   1. Historically when Covenant Theology is emphasized, the new birth is not.
4. Kindness leads men to Christ.
   1. Though Nettleton was very serious, numerous men said that his kindness drew men to hear him. 42, 242, 254, 300, 414
   
   
   1. When he led a man to Christ, he took time to speak to the new believer about being kind and enduring hardness. 424
5. Pleading is an important part of Christian preaching.
   1. “Have you courage? Dare you not act a part so friendly to the souls of men? How many, think ye, may be lost through your neglect? If we do not warn sinners, my brethren, God has warned us. … What is your zeal, brethren, for the salvation of souls, compared with that of the Son of God? ‘He beheld the city and wept over it.’” 196
   
   
   1. “They felt themselves in the hands, and at the disposal of God [when Nettleton preached]. … They felt, that if they were lost they should be without excuse. … Everyone felt that the finger of God was in [his preaching].” 105
   
   
   1. His preaching was pleading, persuading, and pulling.

Thesis

• Because Nettleton took God, Hell, and the new birth very seriously, he was used to see thousands converted.

Bibliography

• Tyler, Bennet and Andrew Bonar, Asahel Nettleton: Life and Labors, Banner of Truth, reprinted 1996, 1854, 454 pages.