Die Preaching

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.