The time we are living in is often called a time of quiet revival. However, this is not the first quiet revival.
In the
early 1800s, ‘waves of glory’ were recorded as sweeping across church congregations
on the eastern seaboard of the United States. A young man stood at the back of
one of those meetings. Convicted of his sin, he described himself as ‘shaking
under the terrors of the Lord.’ That man was Asahel Nettleton (1783-1844).
Nettleton felt
God calling him to the task of salvation. He reflected at the time, ‘If I might
be the means of saving one soul, I should prefer it to all the riches and
honour in the world.’
A quietly
spoken man, Nettleton’s preaching was recorded as resulting in ‘quality conversions.’
Working through the churches of New England and down as far as New York, in his
understated way, Nettleton wrote of a ‘general awakening and creation of
interest’ wherever he went.
Quietness
doesn’t equal softness, however. In one place, Nettleton refused to preach
until there had been repentance from the obvious disunity amongst the leaders
there.
Often his
meetings were in homes and farmhouses across the smaller towns and villages. What
started as tens and twenties giving their lives to Christ in the meetings, grew
into the hundreds. In Malta, New England, so many were saved in a short time, it
represented a majority of the local population.
Nettleton
records a particularly dramatic evening in the town of Malta in 1820:
‘The room
was so crowded that we were obliged to request all who had recently found
relief to retire below and spend their time in prayer for those above. This
evening will never be forgotten. The scene is beyond description. Did you ever
witness 200 sinners, with one accord in one place, weeping for their sins?
Until you have seen this, you have no adequate conceptions of the solemn scene.
I felt as though I was 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 the
judgement to come.
‘The
solemnity was still heightened when every knee bent at the throne of grace, and
the intervening silence of the voice of prayer was interrupted only by the
sighs and sobs of anxious souls. I have no time to relate the interesting
particulars. I only add that some of the most stout, hard-hearted,
heaven-daring rebels have been in the most awful distress. Within a circle
whose diameter would be twenty-four miles, not less than 800 souls have been
hopefully born into the kingdom of Christ since last September. The same
glorious work is felt spreading into other towns and congregations.’
This first
Quiet Revival was a precursor to the noisy revival that followed with Charles
Finney. But that’s another story…..
Further
reading:
God Sent
Revival – The story of Asahel Nettleton by J F Thornburry (secondhand only)
