Nash PROPHESIED a Powerful Warning
DANIEL “FATHER” NASH (1775–1831) suffered at the hands of a church. When he was in his mid-forties, his congregation in upstate New York dismissed him, saying they wanted a younger man who would not travel so much. Considering Nash had led 70 locals to Christ (including his own wife, Sally Porter), this was ungenerous. After his dismissal, he led another 200 souls to Christ, until, broken by rejection, he lost touch with God. However, while suffering a debilitating disease and nearly losing his eyesight, he spent hours in a darkened room in prayer and emerged renewed.
Nash became a supporter in Charles Finney’s revivals, praying and fasting for the preacher and his hearers. Although Nash generally kept out of the limelight, his role was not unnoticed. He wrote,
The work of God moves forward in power, in some places against dreadful opposition. Mr. Finney and I have both been hanged and burned in effigy. We have frequently been disturbed in our religious meetings. Sometimes the opposers make a noise in the house of God; sometimes they gather round the house and stone it, and discharge guns. There is almost as much writing, intrigue, and lying, and reporting of lies, as there would be if we were on the eve of a presidential election. Oh, what a world! How much it hates the truth! How unwilling to be saved! But I think the work will go on.
God empowered Nash’s prayers and many people were converted. Finney tells of some instances in his memoirs.
Father Nash heard us speak of this Mr. D__ as ‘‘a hard case;” and immediately put his name upon his praying list....Not many days afterward, as we were holding an evening meeting with a very crowded house, who should come in but this notorious D__? He sat and writhed upon his seat, and was very uneasy. He soon arose, and tremblingly asked me if he might say a few words. I told him that he might. He then proceeded to make one of the most heart-broken confessions that I almost ever heard....and from that time, as long as I [stayed] there, and I know not how much longer, a prayer meeting was held in his bar-room nearly every night.
In another instance Nash made a rare address to a crowded meeting, speaking a prophetic utterance from God. A company of young men who resisted the revival “sat braced up against the Spirit of God....their brazen-facedness and stiff-neckedness were apparent to everybody.”
Brother Nash addressed them very earnestly, and pointed out the guilt and danger of the course they were taking.... “Now, mark me, young men, God will break your ranks in less than one week, either by converting some of you, or by sending some of you to hell. He will do this as certainly as the Lord is my God!” He was standing where he brought his hand down on the top of the pew before him, so as to make it thoroughly jar. He sat immediately down, dropped his head, and groaned with pain.
The house was as still as death, and most of the people held down their heads. I could see that the young men were agitated. For myself, I regretted that brother Nash had gone so far. He had committed himself, that God would either take the life of some of them, and send them to hell, or convert some of them, within a week. However, on Tuesday morning of the same week, the leader of these young men came to me, in the greatest distress of mind.
He was all prepared to submit; and as soon as I came to press him he broke down like a child, confessed, and manifestly gave himself to Christ.
Then he said, “What shall I do, Mr. Finney?”
I replied “Go immediately to all your young companions, and pray with them, and exhort them, at once to turn to the Lord.”
He did so; and before the week was out, nearly if not all of that class of young men, were hoping in Christ.
Daniel Nash died on this day, 20 December 1831, in Verona, New York.
—Dan Graves
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For more about Finney, read CH 20 Charles Grandison Finney
