BY THE REV. DAVE CANNON
Maybe you are like many of us who can’t remember things ever being quite like they are now with the Dow Jones, gas prices, and housing values running like a roller coaster out of control! Hidden in the pages of dusty history books is the eye-opening story of a strikingly familiar-sounding financial disaster that gripped our country about 150 years ago.
A large insurance company in Cincinnati folded overnight, sending shock waves throughout our young country’s economy. The 12 years that preceded this catastrophic collapse were years of easy money and speculative investment of all sorts. By October 14, 1857, the nation’s banking system toppled, leaving hundreds of thousands destitute in New York, Boston and Philadelphia alone. Samuel I. Prime, chief editor of the New York Observer, summed up these sobering events with words we might not expect from one so shrewd and worldly-wise. When “men transact on unsound principles,” said Prime, “the law of trade, as well as of God, necessitates the penalty.”
Prime had diagnosed the problem, but it was Jeremiah Lanphier, another businessman, who wrestled with the cure. This once successful 48 year-old New York businessman turned his attention from the smoldering wreckage of the economy of his day to his Creator. First, he earnestly pursued God’s answers in heart-felt prayer.
Then he invited others to join him. He invited businessmen along New York City’s bustling Fulton Street to turn their eyes heavenward to plead for the forgiveness and help of God, inviting them to meet for just a few minutes over their lunch hour in various businesses along the street. On the first day, Lamphier began the prayer meeting alone but was soon joined by five other businessmen.
The number grew to 40 within that week. Within several weeks there were over 100 of New York’s merchants gathered for a few minutes over lunch hours, humbling their hearts in confession and thanks to God. One observer marveled at how many experienced “conviction of sin, seeking an interest in Christ.” After six months the number swelled to 10,000, this unusual work of God gripping the lives of judges, college students, businessmen, and housewives!
On March 20, 1858, a New York Times editorial read: “Over this great land tens and fifties of thousands of men and women are putting to themselves at this time in a simple serious way the greatest question that can ever come before the human mind. ‘What shall we do to be saved from sin?'”
Friend, perhaps that is the same “bookmark” God wants these current deepening financial distresses to put in your life right now. It may be that God will use these enduring hardships to show you how badly you need Him. The number who wisely began asking about their need to be saved from sin in 1858 could have filled a number of major league football stadiums today. Will you let God use these difficult times to probe your heart right now?
The Rev. Dave Cannon is pastor at Calvary Baptist Church in Hollister.
