Sam Jones Came To Town

The year 1886 was memorable in America for five significant events. There was a fatal riot in Seattle, Washington, a devastating hurricane in Indianola, Texas, a ground-shaking earthquake in Charleston, South Carolina, and in New York, there was a formal dedication in New York Harbor of the Statue of Liberty. Did I mention the fifth one? Oh yes, Sam Jones came to town.

Very few people today are familiar with the name of Sam Jones, but in his lifetime, he was a household word. Portraits of his likeness hung in homes all across America. Candy bars and streets were named after him.

In the late 19th century, he was the most quoted man in America, but the most unique thing about this man, Sam Jones, was the fact he was a national treasure who, in his lifetime, altered the moral life of the nation. Sam Jones was a national figure whom the secular newspaper, the Chicago Tribune, printed an article on his visit to their city. The articles dated April 5, 1886, where it stated, it is a fair estimate that 350,000 heard him in Chicago, and 25 million read his sermons during the last five weeks.

No such record is found in all the annals of our Christian religion. Well, that's the Chicago Tribune saying that, friends. Sam Jones had been invited to Chicago by D.L. Moody, and a powerful revival shook the city under his searching sermons.

The total population of the United States in 1880 was 50 million people. That means when the Chicago Tribune stated that 25 million people had read Sam Jones' sermons in a five-week period, that means Sam Jones reached one out of every two Americans with the gospel of Christ, and just slid over one month alone. He was an absolute phenomenon who shook America for God in the 19th century, and now nobody knows who he is.

But when Sam Jones died in October of 1906, at the age of 58, the entire nation mourned him. His body was laid in state under the great dome of the Georgia State Capitol building in Atlanta, where it was said over 30,000 people walked by his casket to honor him. He literally transformed the life of an entire nation.

It was recognized as such by the President of the United States. When President Teddy Roosevelt spoke in Atlanta to a crowd of 50,000 people at Piedmont Park, upon learning that Sam Jones was in the audience, he had him rise and join him at the podium. The President then placed his arm around him and commended him to the large crowd by saying, Mr. Jones, you and your way are doing for this country and the people what I am trying to do in my way.

I heartily endorse your good work and hope that you succeed, and success will continue to crown your efforts in the next time you visit Washington. I want you to telegraph me in advance. I want you to be my guest during your stay in the capital city.

Well, Sam Jones was an evangelist. He was a descendant of Jonathan Edwards through his grandmother, Elizabeth Jones. She read through her Bible 37 times on her knees.

He had a remarkable Christian heritage. Sam Jones also had remarkable anointing of the Holy Spirit upon him in the conversion of souls. And God used Sam Jones in powerful revivals throughout the country that often altered the entire moral life of a community.

Listen, friends, to the following true story about Sam Jones and Reform, Alabama. Reform is a city in Pickens County, Alabama, and is located halfway between Columbus, Mississippi and Tuscaloosa on Route 82. The city records the city record state it was named Reform after a visit by an evangelist.

Reform, Alabama was named after the evangelist Sam Jones conducted revival meetings there. Sam Jones came to town and preached for eight weeks. And when he left, nobody in the town was in jail.

The theaters were closed. Nobody played cards, and the liquor stores were run out of business. There wasn't anything questionable left.

And when men would curse in the streets, they would lower their voices so nobody could hear them. But the most memorable meeting of Sam Jones's career came in 1885 to the city of Nashville, Tennessee, where 10,000 people daily lined up at a tent in downtown Nashville to hear him preach. And thousands were converted in those meetings.

And the most famous convert was Captain Tom Ryman, who owned a fleet of steamboats that went up and down the Cumberland River. And he was known for his vice. He came to a Sam Jones meeting to oppose him and to physically beat him up.

But instead, upon hearing him preach the gospel, he knelt brokenhearted, weeping, giving his life to Christ. He then built the Ryman Auditorium for Sam Jones to preach in way before he became the host of the Grand Old Opry. But to get a true historical sense of the magnitude and popularity, friends, of Sam Jones and his time is to read you a historical record of his visit to Cincinnati in January of 1886.

Listen to this, friends. The city leaders had invited Sam Jones to the city, and they had booked the spacious Music Hall, which had a seating capacity of 10,000. The following account of a Sam Jones meeting reads like a chapter from the Book of Acts.

It's recorded and printed by the secular paper, the Cincinnati Enquirer, and is dated February 15, 1886. And I quote you the following eyewitness account. The services last evening concluded the labors of Sam Jones in Cincinnati.

For five weeks, he has been laboring in God's cause in this city, and his efforts have been crowned with unparalleled success never before was such a religious awakening known in Cincinnati. Large crowds have attended the services both day and night, and the revivalists have averaged two sermons each day. Conversions have been many, and thousands of people sincerely regret the departure of the earnest and plain-spoken preacher from the city.

He was generally known yesterday was to be the last day of his stay here, and everyone who had heard him wanted to hear him again, while those who had not yet heard him were anxious to embrace the last opportunity. Early in the afternoon, policemen were stationed at the doors to control the crowd. For a time, the street was completely blocked for two squares by the great crowds coming and going.

It is not an extravagant estimate to say that 50,000 people sought admission to Music Hall last night. As early as half past five o'clock in the afternoon, a large crowd of people had already assembled in front of the building awaiting the opening of the doors. By six o'clock, at which hour promptly the doors were thrown open, the crowd in front of the building had been so largely augmented that within ten minutes after the doors opened, ten thousand people were rammed, jammed, and packed into every nook and corner of that immense building.

A reporter, who came along fifteen minutes after six o'clock, had great difficulty in working his way to the front by reason of the crowds that thronged the aisles in every inch of standing room in the hall. A few minutes later, the doors were shut and bolted, it being dangerous to admit any more people. At seven o'clock, Elm Street, from twelve to fourteen streets, was one surging black sea of humanity that were locked out.

No one was crushed to death. It's a miracle there were at least forty thousand people around Music Hall. All the streetcars were completely blockaded, and the streets utterly impassable.

Mr. Jones drove up to the hall, a little after seven o'clock, and with the aid of a stalwart policeman, interest was forced part of the way, when finally, policemen had to take him up, place him on their shoulders, and carry him into the entrance of the building. When he walked out on the platform, he was greeted with prolonged applause, facing the vast audience he said, I thank God the gospel of Jesus Christ can overdraw anything else in Cincinnati. The ten thousand people who got in, and the forty thousand who didn't, ran the statement as a slander that this is a wicked, lawless, and ill-religious city.

There is no truer, nobler, or better city in the world than Cincinnati. Well, I will stop there, friends. That's just one snapshot of one city among dozens that Sam Jones shook for God and the gospel.

And I'll end this message on Sam Jones, with a story about his sudden death. His last meeting was on October 13th, 1906, at a men's meeting in Oklahoma City. He was speaking to four thousand men, and as he preached his famous sermon entitled, Sudden Death, his text was taken from Proverbs 29.1. He, that being often reproved, hardeneth his neck, shall suddenly be destroyed, and that without remedy.

And as he drew to a close of his powerful message, he looked out across the mass of humanity, and as if speaking prophetically, he issued a solemn warning. He cried, Men of Oklahoma City, look out, before my voice has died out in your ears. There will be deaths, following this meeting, that will shake and shock this city and state, and even the nation.

And incredibly, as if an explanation point to his sermon, he boarded the train, and it wasn't long before he dropped dead suddenly, while sitting in a train car. Well, friends, the preceding excerpts were taken from my new biography on Sam Jones. It's over four hundred pages long, and I wish I had more time to share more stories with you, to introduce them to you.

The title of the book is Sam Jones, A New Biography, and men like Sam Jones need to be studied. If we are to have any hope of revival today, we have to see how God has moved in former times through his human instruments of revival. Let us pray.