We live in a day of a powerless
pulpit that's occupied by professionals who know how
to please their congregations with clever essays or
by humor and entertainment.
And because of this, very few are truly
saved today.
Congregations are full of the unconverted.
But there used to be a time in
this country years ago where the pulpits were
occupied by holy men of God who preached
hell and its torments and man's duty of
repentance and his necessity of regeneration.
They could thunder the law about the ears
of their hearers until they saw Sinai flash
with lightning as it was altogether on a
smoke.
Their preaching would make strong men tremble.
Men like Jonathan Edwards, George Whitefield, Charles Finney,
and Asahel Nettleton.
Their preaching was so powerful that the sentences
that dropped from their lips fell like hailstones
from Revelation.
The great George Whitefield could hold 20,000
people spellbound in the open air on Boston
Common and some of his hearers would become
so overcome with the message that they would
drop dead in 1740 in Enfield, Connecticut when
Jonathan Edwards preached his famous sermon Sinners in
the Hands of an Angry God.
His hearers felt the soles of their shoes
warmed from the fires of hell below and
an eyewitness account that evening recorded Ye minister
had to desist from preaching because of all
the shrieks and groans throughout the meeting house.
It was said of Asahel Nettleton that when
he preached from Genesis about Sodom being burned
up that his words so gripped his hearers
that their heads were turned towards the windows
of the church to see Sodom all in
flames.
A man of God, anointed with the Spirit
of God can be used by the hand
of God to awaken dead men to life.
Through preaching we'll walk you over to the
very verge of eternity then lift the lid
off the bottomless pit so you can hear
the groans and cries of the damned.
In Jeremiah 23, 29 we read It's not
by word like as a fire, sayeth the
Lord and like a hammer that breaketh the
rock in pieces.
Let me ask you, friend what does a
house fire do?
Well, it awakens in alarms in the word
of God in the hands of the right
preacher can smash all false foundations of an
empty religious profession and show men their danger
of dying in their sins and dropping into
the burning regions of hell.
A man full of the Holy Ghost whose
burden with the souls of man can be
a divine sledgehammer in the hands of a
holy God.
And that's the title of my message today,
friends The Divine Sledgehammer and I want to
take the time to read us an account
from the second great awakening where Charles Fanny
was preaching in a schoolhouse and all hell
broke loose.
It's taken from his memoir and I want
to take the time to give you his
recording of that event today.
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
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
herdmen 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 until
he reduced 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, Abraham's nephew and the man said to
Lot hast thou here any besides son-in
-law and the sons and the daughters and
whatsoever thou hast in the city bring them
out of this place for we will destroy
this place because the cry of them is
waxing great before the face of the Lord
and the Lord has sent us to destroy
it and Lot went and spoke unto his
sons-in-law which married his daughters and
said get ye out of this place for
the Lord will destroy the city but he
seemed as though 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 of the men were
in their shirt sleeves 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'd finished the
narrative I turned upon them and said that
I understood that they never had a religious
meeting in that place and 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 this strain of
direct application I should think more than a
quarter of an hour when all at once
an awful solemnity seemed to settle down upon
them and as some thing flashed over the
congregation a kind of shimmering as there was
some agitation in the atmosphere itself the congregation
began to fall from their seats and to
fill in every direction and cried for mercy
if I'd had a sword in each hand
I could not have cut them off their
seats as fast as they fell indeed 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 the no longer
paid any attention to me