Asahel Nettleton, who was greatly used to God
during the Second Great Awakening, often retreated to
the healing waters at Sarasota Springs in New
York because he was weary from his revival
labors.
But once he got there, word would always
come out that Nettleton was in town and
he was always pulled away from his rest
to go preach the gospel.
Jesus told his disciples, when they returned from
their evangelistic efforts, to come and rest a
while.
We read in Mark's Gospel in chapter 6,
beginning in verse 30, And the apostles gathered
themselves together unto Jesus, and told him all
things, both what they had done and what
they had taught.
And he said unto them, Come ye, yourselves
apart, into a desert place, and rest a
while.
But they all died preaching anyhow.
There's always been a Moody, or a Sam
Jones, or a Whitefield, who spent themselves on
Christ and the gospel—George Whitefield, while making his
way through a crowd of four thousand hearers,
on his way to his field pulpit in
the open air, in a field in Exeter,
New Hampshire, was questioned by a bystander, who
commented, Mr. Whitefield, you look more fit for
bed than for preaching.
To which the great evangelist replied, Quite true,
sir, but I'd rather wear out than rust
out.
Whitefield preached his last that day, to die
the next morning, at the age of fifty
-five, worn out from his labors.
Sam Jones wore himself out, laboring for Christ
and the gospel, and dropped dead on a
train at fifty-nine, before he got back
home.
Moody barely got home to die in his
bed at sixty-one, but he was half
dead before he got there anyway.
I believe it's tough going on the front
line of the battlefront, because that's where the
fighting is the fiercest.
If you're gonna beard the devil, you have
to fight him where all hell is a
-poppin' all around you, where the poisoned arrows
buzz your head, and the smell of hot
lead fills your nostrils.
I believe a prophet of God can get
mighty weary, mighty chewed up by the devil,
and at the point of exhaustion.
I don't reckon the prophet Elijah was any
good for preaching, under the juniper tree, in
complete exhaustion.
If he tried to preach a sermon there
in that condition, it would have been a
dud, after he spent himself on top of
Carmel, going toe to toe with four hundred
and fifty thousand four hundred and fifty prophets
of Baal.
If you're gonna cry, thus saith the Lord,
you better be dead sure, friend, you have
shut yourself up to God, and have a
message from God to deliver to the people
of God.
And when you're standing before the prophets of
Baal of your generation, and when you're done
delivering that message of judgment upon a guilty
generation, and the devil's throwing everything at you,
including his filthy kitchen sink, you better find
a place to rest a while, to catch
your breath, and get the gumption to go
fight again, as you go out there once
more under the power of the Holy Ghost,
to preach as a dying man to dying
men.
Many have died with their boots on.
Stephen died just as he finished his sermon,
while being stoned, as he saw Christ rise
from his throne.
Jesus had to get up to go greet
him.
Ralph Barnard was walking out the door on
his way to a preaching engagement, when he
crumpled to the floor from a heart attack.
I haven't had a vacation since.
God's called me to preach.
The only rest I got last year was
forced, while I was in the hospital after
heart failure.
And you can't rest there, anyhow.
How can you rest, when people are moaning
all around you?
And how can I rest, when folks are
dropping into hell all around me?
I'd rather be on the out-and-out
for Christ, than die preaching, than in a
bed, anyhow.
Only one life, which will soon be passed.
Only what's done for Christ will last.