Preparation Of An Intercessor
This is such a great story of Daniel Nash. I love what is written on his tombstone: Pastor- Laborer with Finney- Mighty in Prayer.
What a great testimony even after death.
If only you can have such a ministry today that the only thing that can be placed on your tombstone would be your accomplishments through Christ. What a burden this dear brother had had endured. I have read a small booklet on John “praying” Hyde, it was a great gem and to learn of the burden he had carried for that country, only to be taken home early in the prime of his life. Was it a waste? By no means.
However, this article on Daniel Nash, is so extraordinary, how can we compare today?
I like what Leonard Ravenhill, wrote “God wrote the shortest biography about Elijah; He prayed”. God always has his pray-ers, even if we do not know whom or where they are. I believe that when the books are open at the great white throne, will we truly know the great warriors of the cross, that birthed us through prayer, agonized, wrestled with God and stormed the gates of Hell on their knee’s and with the power from on high.
Nash’s humble beginnings he pastored a small church in the backwoods of New York for six years, and traveled with and prayed for a traveling evangelist for seven more years until his death. As far as we know, he never ministered outside the region of upstate New York during days when much of it was frontier. His tombstone is in a neglected cemetery along a dirt road behind a livestock auction barn.
His church no longer exists, its meetinghouse location marked by a historical marker in a corn field; the building is gone, its timber used to house grain at a feed mill four miles down the road. No books tell his life story, no pictures or diaries can be found, his descendants (if any) cannot be located, and his messages are forgotten.
He wrote no books, started no schools, led no movements, and generally, kept out of sight.
This man saw revival twice in his pastorate, and then was a key figure in one of the greatest revivals in the history of the United States. In many ways he was to the U. S. what Praying Hyde was to India. He is known almost exclusively for his powerful prayer ministry. The great evangelist, Charles Finney, left his itinerant ministry for the pastorate within three or four months after this man’s death. Finney never counted on his theology, messages, preaching style, logic, or methods to save souls. He looked rather to mighty prayer and the resulting powerful work of the Holy Spirit to sweep in with great conviction on his audience, that his conversions might be thorough.
This may well explain why eighty per cent of those converted in his meetings stood the test of time.
Years later Moody followed a similar pattern but without such a prayer warrior. He saw perhaps fifty per cent of his converts last. Today, a well-known evangelist (well-financed and highly organized) recently stated that he would be delighted if twenty per cent of his converts were genuinely converted. In this day of apostasy with many decisions but few true conversions, with many programs but little prayer, with much organizing but little agonizing, we would be wise to learn lessons from men and women of past.
One of our godly forefathers whose life can teach us such is Daniel Nash. Nash’s early years, seem mostly lost from the records of history. This much we do know-he was born November 27, 1775, and by November 11, 1816, at the age of 40 he had accepted the pastorate of the Stow’s Square Congregational-Presbyterian Church, Lowville Township. He had moved there from Onondaga County (the area around Syracuse), and had a farm at least by 1825, the time of the first census in the area.
During his first year of pastoring this union church, he saw Revival with at least seventy persons being converted. One of the first he baptized was a Sally Porter (December 18, 1816), to whom he was married by February of 1817. He baptized five of her children before spring and possibly a sixth several years later. Typical church problems were dealt with clearly by church discipline–broken contracts between members, heresy regarding the Trinity, and so on.
A meetinghouse was built beginning June 7, 1819, and “dedicated to the service of God” December 13, 1819. There was a group who split from the main group during the period of the building program or shortly thereafter. They located four miles south where the village of Lowville was beginning to develop.
Pastor Nash was able to peaceably work with this group and establish it as a mission throughout the rest of his pastorate. Upon the completion of the meetinghouse and while working with the mission work to the south, he was able to start a Sabbath School in the union church. Such a ministry would seem to be the basis for a long term relationship.
September 25, 1822, a strange church meeting was called at an unusual time and he was voted out by a vote of nine to three! The only reasons surviving to this day in the records were that they wanted “a young man to settle in.” At the age of 46 they felt him too old, and resented his traveling. While his term as pastor was ended as of November 10, 1822, he often came to preach, act as moderator, baptize converts, and hold communion over the next several years.
During this ending of his pastoring and the ministry that followed, there was a second move of revival in 1823 where over two hundred were converted. This occurred in a township of only 308 homes with a population of approximately 2,000 people. Imagine God blessing a rejected pastor with such a revival, and the church taking no steps to recall him! Through all of this God was breaking and preparing the heart of this man to leave a public ministry of preaching for a private one of solitary prayer.
Such rejection by those he loved and had ministered to did its crushing work, and by 1824 he was so damaged spiritually that any human hope of a prayer ministry seemed impossible. At this time Charles Finney was to be examined for a license to preach, and he records his first meeting with Daniel Nash as follows:
“At this meeting of the presbytery, I first saw Rev. Daniel Nash, who is generally known as ‘Father Nash.’ He was a member of the presbytery. A large congregation was assembled to hear my examination. I got in a little late, and saw a man standing in the pulpit speaking to the people, as I supposed. He looked at me, I observed, as I came in; and was looking at others as they passed up the aisles. As soon as I reached my seat and listened, I observed that he was praying. I was surprised to see him looking all over the house, as if he were talking to the people; while in fact he was praying to God. Of course it did not sound to me much like prayer; and he was at that time indeed in a very cold and back-slidden state.”
The Path For Souls-Through Intercessory Prayer
After this meeting Nash was struck with a serious case of inflamed eyes. For several weeks he had to be kept in a dark room where he could neither read nor write. During this time “he gave himself up almost entirely to prayer.” He had a terrible overhauling of his whole Christian experience; and as soon as he was able to see, with a double black veil before his face, he sallied forth to labor for souls.” His labors did not take the form of personal evangelism or of evangelistic preaching. Instead he began one of the greatest ministries of prayer evangelism recorded in history.
This rejected and broken former preacher gave himself to a labor that would influence praying people to this day.
Charles Finney’s labors in evangelism began in the region of Evans Mills, New York, and here Daniel Nash headed to start his special prayer ministry. When he arrived, Finney stated, “He was full of the power of prayer.” The two men were drawn into a partnership that was ended only by Daniel’s death seven years later.
Their goals were stated simply in a letter as follows:
“When Mr. Finney and I began our race, we had no thought of going among ministers. Our highest ambition was to go where there was neither minister or reformation and try to look up the lost sheep, for whom no man cared. We began and the Lord prospered…. But we go into no man’s parish unless called…. We have room enough to work and work enough to do.”
This evangelistic team operated on the basis of intercessory prayer being essential for the preparation of an area for evangelism. This idea was so strong that Finny often sent Nash to an area to prepare the place and people for his coming. Often it would take 3 or 4 weeks of prayer to get the area ready.