Chapter 3: Simpson’s Place in Evangelism
III
Simpson’s Place in Evangelism
Simpson’s passion for evangelism began with his own struggle during his conversion experience. He never forgot the distress he went through struggling to accept Christ as his Savior. Though he had grown up in a Christian family, the church he attended never explained the gospel to him. After his conversion, Simpson saw a dramatic change in his life that impacted him in all ways. His burden for reaching the lost on behalf of Christ blossomed in his ministry at the Chestnut Street Presbyterian Church in Louisville, Kentucky, and it culminated in his ministry at the Gospel Tabernacle in New York City. It was in Louisville that Simpson saw the importance of the centrality of evangelism in the church. He, along with other pastors as well as with Major Whittle and P. P. Bliss, organized the evangelistical crusade at which revival broke out. When the other pastors did not want to continue with the evangelistical outreach after Whittle and Bliss’ crusade, Simpson and his church continued. This focus on evangelism continued for the next five years. It would be here that Simpson came to see what a united church could do through evangelism to reach not only an urban community, but also the world with the gospel.
While in New York City at the Thirteenth Street Presbyterian Church, Simpson’s vision of evangelism clashed with that of the leaders of the church. He saw the church’s primary function as reaching out in evangelism, but that was not the view held by most in leadership. Simpson resigned from the church and gathered a like-minded group of people with a vision to reach New York City and the world beyond. From this group, the Gospel Tabernacle was founded. It was from this body of believers that the missionary society that became the Christian and Missionary Alliance was formed. Evangelism became Simpson’s and the church’s primary passion. Although Simpson saw himself primarily as a pastor, he viewed evangelism as the most important ministry of his office.
The first fold of Simpson’s Fourfold Gospel message was the truth that Christ had died for humankind and so had provided salvation for all of humanity.261 Simpson believed that it this fold was the foundation of his evangelistic outreach. It would also become the main focus of the Christian and Missionary Alliance, the denomination he founded. As George Pardington, one of the early leaders of the Christian and Missionary Alliance, remarked,
The primary message of the Alliance is Christ our Savior. Our first business for the king is the salvation of sinners. To win souls is our fundamental ministry. Indeed, to lie in wait for men like the Master Himself and with the wisdom and skill that are born from above to catch them in the net of the Gospel is the highest calling of the surrendered and consecrated Christian.262
Simpson fully embraced this primary message. As J. Edwin Orr explains, the Third Great Awakening can be divided into three phrases as follows. The initial phase was the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, which lasted from 1857 until 1859. The second phase was the evangelism phase, which took place shortly after the Civil War and lasted until 1899. The third phase began with the Welsh Revival between 1904 and 1905, and its evangelism phase lasted until World War I. As will be seen, Simpson was a part of each of these phases.
Simpson was converted at the beginning of the Third Great Awakening and ministered throughout the second and third phase of the Awakening until his death at the end of the Third Great Awakening. Joel Carpenter comments on Simpson and other leaders’ involvement when he writes:
Moody’s partners in this new wave of popular outreach were a group of gifted and respectable urban pastors, such as Presbyterian A. J. Pierson of Philadelphia and A. B. Simpson of New York, and Baptists, A. J. Gordon of Boston and A. C. Dixon of Baltimore. These ministers modified their own genteel tastes and values and revamped their congregations to reflect the popular revivalistic style of urban evangelists.263
There were many men and women who were involved in the evangelism phase that helped spread the Awakening. A number of pastors and evangelists saw large numbers come to Christ including Simpson. Orr comments that it was during the Third Great Awakening that the church rediscovered evangelism.264 He wrote:
All things considered, the nineteenth century Awakening [the Third Great Awakening] represented no great discovery or rediscovery of doctrine. Its language was largely that of the New Testament stated in the language of the Reformers and the Revivalists of an earlier century. The great contribution of the Awakening was its application of these doctrines in the evangelization of the great mass of unchurched at home and the heathen abroad.265
This period would become the era of the evangelist. Nathan Hatch, commenting on the twentieth century, speaks about some of the leaders in evangelism at that time. He writes, “Evangelicals in this century, on the other hand have virtually organized their faith around the issue of communicating the gospel. Evangelism and missions were the principle burden of leaders such as A. B. Simpson, A. J. Gordon, R. A. Torrey, Charles E. Fuller, V. Raymond Edmans, Harold Ockenga and Billy Graham.”266
Moody’s Impact on the Awakening
Simpson, along with many others, poured his heart into evangelism. D. L. Moody became the primary leader of the revival and helped spread the Awakening. Through his campaigns, God transformed this former shoe salesman into one of the greatest evangelists in the later half of the nineteenth century. One scholar estimated that Moody presented the gospel to over one hundred million people in his lifetime.267 This was more people than any evangelist had ever spoken to until Billy Graham came on the scene in the twentieth century—and Moody did all his preaching without the benefit of microphones and public address systems. This was true of all the evangelists and leaders of his era, including Simpson.
Moody preached a simple salvation message emphasizing the need for a personal relationship with Jesus Christ.268 Moody had been brought to salvation by Edward Kimball, his Sunday school teacher in Boston. Kimball saw this young eighteen-year-old shoe salesman had an interest in spiritual things and went to him privately to share the message of Christ, and Moody was gloriously converted.269 Moody recollects his conversion with the following words:
When I was in Boston I used to attend a Sunday School class, and one day I recalled my teacher came around behind the counter of the shop I was at work in, and put his hand upon my shoulder, and talked to me about Christ and my soul. I had not felt I had a soul till then. I said to myself, “this is a very strange thing. Here is a man who never saw me till lately, and he is weeping over my sins, and I never shed a tear about them.” But I understood it now, and know what it is to have a passion for men’s souls and weep over their sins. I don’t remember what he said, but I can feel the power of that man’s hand on my shoulder tonight. It was not long after that I was brought into the Kingdom of God.270
Moody changed and put his whole heart and effort in reaching the lost for Christ, beginning with Sunday school children in Chicago.
Moody once said, “Christianity is not a creed; it is not doctrine, it is not feeling; it is not an impression; but it is a person.” Moody saw that his purpose was to introduce others to the Savior.271
The theology of Moody can be summed up by the three Rs.272 First, he believed humanity was ruined by Adam’s fall. Moody believed in the total depravity of man. People were sinful. Moody said, “I look upon this world as a wrecked vessel; God has given me a lifeboat and said to me, ‘Moody save all you can.’” The second R that Moody believed was that humanity was redeemed by the blood of Christ. He preached over and over again the necessity for the unsaved to come to God through Christ’s blood. He also taught that it was because of God’s love for sinners that he sent Christ to die on the cross for humanity. Moody’s last R was regenerated by the Spirit. It is the Holy Spirit who brings people to the Savior. It is only through the power of the Holy Spirit that this can be accomplished, so one must look to the Holy Spirit to do the convicting work in a sinner’s life.273
Moody saw his ministry as pointing sinners to the Savior, whether it was individually or in a crusade. What made Moody so effective? Moody’s preaching was simple, and anyone could understand it. Although Moody’s grammar was at times atrocious, he used short, simple sentences everyone could comprehend. He was a good communicator. Moody used numerous illustrations that people could identify with. He was also a great storyteller. He was very humorous in his preaching. He could also make people cry when he preached. His sincerity showed through, and people trusted him.274 All these factors were appealing to people. This is why Moody appealed to simple factory workers and to seminary students such as R. A. Torrey at Yale. Gifted as he was in these areas, there was something Moody was missing that would ultimately make an even greater impact on his preaching.
Until his third trip to Great Britain, Moody had been involved in Sunday school work, the YMCA, and the founding of a church. He would speak at meetings, but it was not until his filling by the Holy Spirit that God began to work through him in a mighty way. Moody described his experience by writing, “Ah, what a day!—I cannot describe it. I seldom refer to it, it is almost too sacred an experience to share—Paul had an experience of which he never spoke for fourteen years.—I can only say God revealed Himself to me, and I had such an experience of His love that I had to ask him to stay his hand.”275
It was after this experience of sanctification that Moody saw God work through his ministry in a great way. Moody and his soloist, Ira Sankey, were invited to go to England to preach at a number of meetings. They arrived in England in 1873 to find that two of the people who had invited them had died.276 Moody and Sankey stayed, and with the help of others, they found places to preach. God began to pour out his Spirit on the meetings, and revival broke out.277 It’s been estimated that between June 1873 and August 1875, Moody and Sankey spoke and sang to over two-and-a-half million people.278 It was advertised in the papers that Moody would preach the gospel and Sankey would sing it. The revival spread throughout all of Great Britain. Fred Hoffman comments:
The revival spread rapidly through England and Scotland, and across to Ireland, resulting in many thousands of converts. This fruitful ministry in the British Isles continued for more than two years. Invitations came from the largest cities in Britain and the revival spread and increased in power, culminating in a great four months’ campaign in the city of London. The whole city was profoundly stirred for God, and the church throughout the nation was graciously revived.279
As the news spread to America about the revival in the British Isles, Moody and Sankey received more speaking engagements than they knew what to do with.
When Moody returned to the United States after the evangelistic campaigns in England, he found that his reputation as an evangelist had been established. Moody’s first campaign back in America was in Brooklyn in 1875. The meetings were held in a large facility called “The Rink,” which had a seating capacity of five thousand. The crowds were so great that over twenty thousand people had to be turned away.280 This would be a foreshadowing of the popularity Moody would enjoy for the next quarter of a century.281 Moody returned to Great Britain in 1881 and stayed until 1884, during which time he saw even greater results than he did on his first tour.282 Moody made his final evangelistic trip to Great Britain in 1891 and stayed until 1892.283 Scharpff wrote, “His methods of evangelism greatly influenced Great Britain, and his writings left a deep impact on the Continent.”284
Moody and Sankey continued their campaigns throughout the United States during this period and held campaigns in large cities such as Chicago, Baltimore, St. Louis, and Cincinnati, but they also went to smaller cities.285 Moody continued his involvement with evangelistic crusades until his death in 1899.286 Hoffman comments that “the last twenty-five years of his [Moody] ministry was largely in the great cities, resulting in a continuous spirit of revival throughout America.”287
A fitting climax to Moody’s evangelistic outreach was the campaign to evangelize those at the Columbian Exposition, the World’s Fair that was held in Chicago in 1893. Moody organized and directed the six-month evangelistic outreach, and it was widely successful.288 Moody brought a number of evangelists in for the World’s Fair, which included Torrey, Wilbur Chapman, and a relatively unknown young evangelist by the name of Billy Sunday.289 Many were converted at the Columbian Exposition directly through the efforts of Moody and the others.
Moody’s influence during the Third Great Awakening was incalculable. God chose him to promote evangelism during this period. Certainly Moody did not act alone in this promotion: there were others such as A. J. Gordon, R. A. Torrey, Wilbur Chapman, A. B. Simpson, and A. C. Dixon, but Moody had the greatest impact. Scharpff remarks, “It would not be an overstatement to call Moody the greatest evangelist of his generation and one of the most fruitful soul-winners in kingdom history.”290 Moody’s influence was seen not only in his ministry in the Third Great Awakening, but also in the impact he would have on those who came to be included in his evangelism after the Welsh Revival. Moody influenced most of those who would become leaders in the worldwide evangelistic outreach following the Welsh Revival—most notably, Torrey, Chapman, and Sunday. These three men would become key figures in the second evangelism phase,291 with Torrey and Chapman becoming Moody’s “first lieutenants.”
Moody’s Lieutenants
Torrey had come in contact with Moody while a student at Yale Divinity School. Torrey and some friends attended a service led by Moody to see what this uneducated layman could teach them!292 Muncy gives us the story of Torrey’s encounter with Moody:
They [Torrey and his friends] went rather condescendingly to see what this uneducated layman might have to say. They were so impressed with Moody’s message that they requested him to teach them how to win souls to Christ. Mr. Moody gave them some verses of Scripture to use and said, “You go at it, the best way to learn is to go at it. How to do it is to do it.” This experience kindled the fires of evangelism in the soul of young Torrey and further prepared him for a career in evangelism.293
In 1889, Torrey became Superintendent at Moody Bible Institute. He would also become the pastor of the Moody Church. Torrey continued in these two capacities until 1902.294 After much prayer by himself and his church, he took a leave of absence at that time to take an evangelistic tour around the world.295 Torrey took Charles Alexander as his soloist, and the two visited Australia, India, and Great Britain. Wherever Torrey and Alexander went, revival broke out.296 Torrey and Alexander returned to America in 1906, continuing their evangelistic campaigns throughout the United States and Canada.297 Between 1911 and 1921, Torrey made several evangelistic trips abroad to Great Britain and Asia.298 From 1912 to 1914, Torrey served as Dean of the Bible Institute of Los Angeles and also served as the pastor of the Church of the Open Door in that same city. He spent his summers in Bible conference ministry and evangelism.299 In 1924, Torrey resigned from his post as Superintendent at the Bible college and pastor of the church in order to give himself over fully to evangelism until his death in 1926.300
This author had the privilege of meeting the evangelist Vance Havner late in Havner’s life. I asked him if he had ever heard Torrey preach. Havner said he knew Torrey and had heard him preach often. He said that Torrey’s messages were basic, but it seemed that whenever he spoke, the Holy Spirit worked in a great way, and many would come forward to receive Christ. There was a special sense of the Holy Spirit in his ministry, not unlike that of his mentor, Moody.
Moody also impacted Chapman in a great way. In fact, it was Moody who led Chapman to Christ. Moody’s powerful influence was seen throughout Chapman’s ministry.301 In all the churches where Chapman pastored, revival would soon break out. Chapman finally resigned from pastoral work and went into full-time evangelistic work. Muncy comments:
His [Chapman] success in pastoral evangelism brought urgent appeals for Mr. Chapman to vie all of his time to evangelistic meetings. In a five-year period he conducted simultaneous meetings in more than fifty American cities with gratifying results. There were seven thousand professions of conversion in one of these meetings and three thousand in another.302
God used Chapman and Torrey to help spread the Awakening. After the Welsh Revival, it was Chapman who gave Billy Sunday his start. Sunday would go on to influence millions as one of the best known evangelists in the United States. It is thought that over one million people shook Sunday’s hand,303 and it is estimated that over one quarter of a million people came to the Savior during Sunday’s ministry.304 Sunday’s successful ministry continued to grow until it hit its peak just before World War I. It was this war that marked the end of the Third Great Awakening. After the war, there seemed to be less interest in Sunday’s type of evangelism.305 Muncy comments that it was the hatred and destruction of human life fostered by World War I that dealt a deathblow to the tabernacle-type of evangelism that Sunday promoted and espoused. Tabernacle evangelism was a type of outreach in which a popular evangelist such as Billy Sunday, Sam Jones, or Paul Rader would come into a town or city and conduct evangelistic crusades. They would begin by taking an old theater and refurbishing it or constructing an inexpensive auditorium called a tabernacle. The evangelist would conduct meetings in the tabernacle for four to six weeks, then move on to another town or city. The tabernacle would remain, and a resident pastor or evangelist would then continue with the outreach.306 Joel Carpenter comments that one of the dangers of this outreach was that “the church was being reduced to a soul-saving station and an armory for mobilization cadres of lay evangelists.”307 This type of evangelism continued for a few years after the war, but its effectiveness diminished.308 As a result of Sunday’s evangelistic efforts and the fruit they bore, it is undeniable that he Sunday played a truly important role in the evangelism of the Third Great Awakening.
Simpson’s Evangelism Efforts
Moody too would come to have an indirect impact on Simpson. Daniel Whittle, an associate of Moody’s, had a tremendous influence on Simpson in his pastorate in Louisville. It was through Whittle that Simpson became burdened for evangelism and came to see it as the most important aspect of his ministry. Whittle also impacted Simpson’s view of sanctification and eschatology.
When Simpson moved to New York City, he made it his goal to reach the city for Christ through evangelism. He made the Gospel Tabernacle an evangelistic center for the city. He never traveled as an itinerant evangelist, but his focus was on the city and the world. Moody helped to lay the foundation for Simpson’s urban work by conducting evangelistic meetings in New York City at the Hippodrome in 1876. He saw great success, and approximately one million people came to the meetings in a span of ten weeks.309 During the crusade, he had a falling out with some of the leaders because of their lack of commitment to the campaign. In his anger, Moody ended the crusade early.310 Afterwards, he regretted his behavior and felt terrible about the outburst. A number of people who traveled long distances ultimately missed the meetings because of the cancellation, and Moody always felt badly about this.311 Dorsett commented:
Moody, in retrospect, sensed he had been terribly wrong. “I closed the meeting in the Hippodrome. In doing so I grieved the Holy Spirit.” And even though New York City had been the “best [campaign] he had ever had” (approximately a million people attended in more than ten weeks), he was convinced God would never bless his work in that city again.312
Moody never returned to New York City to do a major crusade. Simpson went to New York after Moody’s crusade and invested over half of his life trying to reach the city for Christ. Though Moody did not return, God rose up Simpson, an urban evangelist, to reach the city for the Savior. As T. V. Thomas and Ken Draper wrote:
Simpson’s Tabernacle at New York City, soon after its inception, was organized as an independent church. It served as a base for evangelistic meetings, including summer tent ministry. It ran several rescue missions, an orphanage, and home for unwed mothers, and housed the Missionary Training School, which provided trained workers for Simpson’s evangelistic efforts.313
George Pardington stated that the primary purpose of Simpson and the Gospel Tabernacle was to save souls and train soul winners to reach New York City for Christ.314 It was not enough for Simpson and the Alliance just to reach New York City for the Savior; they formed Alliance branches and independent churches to reach the United States and Canada for Christ. Pardington wrote, “Every Alliance branch, like every evangelical church, should be first and foremost a life-saving station for souls.”315 This burden for people was not only for North America, it was also what drove Simpson and the Alliance to focus on worldwide evangelization and mission work.
Simpson’s role in the evangelism phase of the Third Great Awakening was to evangelize both at home and abroad. Through the founding of the Christian and Missionary Alliance, his churches and branches impacted whole towns and cities for the Savior. They took Simpson’s Fourfold Gospel seriously—especially the first fold, Christ our Savior. This was not only true in North America, but also throughout the world.
Though Moody and his associates played major roles in the Awakening, there were many others who were integral in the Awakening. All were involved in the evangelism movement and saw tremendous results. The church is still benefiting from the ministries of Moody, Torrey, Chapman, Sunday, Gordon, Simpson, and many others who played important roles in the evangelistic outreach of the Third Great Awakening.
Prayer and evangelism would help spread the Third Great Awakening. Evangelism was the burden of all of the leaders of the Awakening. It was their desire to see the masses reached with the message of Christ, both in North America and abroad. Moody would end up being the undisputed leader in evangelism during this period. He would influence many others to follow his footsteps in evangelical outreach. One who would follow Moody’s lead was Simpson. He would focus his efforts on New York City, then expand to the surrounding areas and the world. He would pour out his heart to the unreached, both nearby and to the ends of the earth.
Evangelism was integral to the Third Great Awakening. The holiness movement also played an important role. Those who preached the necessity of knowing Christ as one’s Savior also stressed the importance of knowing Christ as one’s Sanctifier. The next chapter will look at the holiness movement and its impact on the Third Great Awakening.
261. Fessenden, “Present Truths,” 5.
262. Pardington, Twenty-Five Wonderful Years, 52.
263. Carpenter, Revive Us Again, 35.
264. Orr, Second Evangelical Awakening, 121.
265. Ibid., 120.
266. Marty, Fundamentalism and Evangelicalism, 13.
267. Terry, Evangelism: A Concise History, 148.
268. Ibid.,151.
269. Dorsett, Passion for Souls, 46.
270. Ibid., 47.
271. Terry, Evangelism: A Concise History, 151.
272. Ibid., 152.
273. Ibid.
274. Ibid., 155
275. Dorsett, Passion for Souls, 156.
276. Cohen, Spirit of the Lord, 117.
277. Hoffman, Revival Times in America, 131.
278. Scharpff, History of Evangelism, 175.
279. Hoffman, Revival Times in America, 131.
280. Muncy, History of Evangelism in the United States, 144.
281. Ibid.
282. Scharpff, History of Evangelism, 175.
283. Ibid., 174.
284. Ibid., 175–76.
285. Hoffman, Revival Times in America, 133.
286. Ibid.
287. Ibid., 134.
288. Ibid., 135.
289. Dorsett, Passion for Souls, 390.
290. Scharpff, History of Evangelism, 177.
291. Orr, Second Evangelical Awakening, 263.
292. Muncy, History of Evangelism in the United States, 148.
293. Ibid.
294. Ibid., 149.
295. Hoffman, Revival Times in America, 147.
296. Ibid.
297. Ibid.
298. Ibid.
299. Ibid.
300. Ibid., 148.
301. Muncy, History of Evangelism in the United States, 147.
302. Ibid.
303. Ibid., 154.
304. Ibid.
305. Ibid., 156.
306. Carpenter, Revive Us Again, 78–79.
307. Ibid., 79.
308. Ibid.
309. Dorsett, Passion for Souls, 245.
310. Ibid.
311. Ibid.
312. Ibid.
313. Hartzfeld and Nienkirchen, Birth of a Vision, 199.
314. Pardington, Twenty-five Wonderful Years, 32.
315. Ibid., 53.