I want to start a session tonight that
I've entitled, The Conviction That We Need.
The Conviction That We Need.
Way back in late 2003, God began dealing
with me along the lines of repentance and
along the lines of getting back to God
and getting closer to God and getting rid
of all the things that were encumbrances in
my life.
And I remember getting up in front of
the church one day when I was ministering
and I made this statement.
I said, you can pray any prayer that
you want, but I'm praying for a double
portion of Holy Ghost conviction to come upon
my life.
And that was my prayer then and it's
my prayer today.
I believe that there's one thing that we
need in the body of Christ is we
need a manifestation of the Spirit of God
that will bring good old-fashioned Holy Ghost
conviction back into the services and our meetings.
And I'm just thankful for God and I'm
thankful that He has moved in my life
and directed me in a lot of different
ways.
And He has, in fact, brought a double
portion of Holy Ghost conviction into my life.
And God has really done a work in
my heart over the last six months, even
beyond what He had done in the ten
years that I had walked with the Lord.
He's really just moved in my heart to
see revival.
He's put an urgency in my heart.
But I want to talk tonight about the
conviction that we need, the conviction we need
as a church, as individuals, as a nation,
and particularly in the services when we are
trying to minister to the lost.
If you'd like to follow in your notes,
you're more than welcome to.
Otherwise, you can just kind of listen along.
The necessity of Holy Ghost conviction.
You see, in order for a person to
be genuinely converted, they must first be genuinely
convicted of their sin by the Spirit of
God.
See, I personally believe that the lack of
genuine conversions in our day can be traced
directly back to a lack of genuine conviction
of sin.
See, the lack of conviction is a result
of Christians having a mistaken notion, see, that
they can win people to Christ by their
methods and programs.
See, I think that there is such a
tendency today to move away from the old
-fashioned methods, as it were, seeking the Lord
in prayer and walking upright before God and
all of the various things required to see
God move.
And they've been replaced with a lot of
methods, and they've been replaced with a lot
of programs, and the results that we're getting
bear this out.
You see, few still believe that it takes
the moving of the Spirit of God to
genuinely save a person from their sin.
Most take it for granted that just as
soon as they open their mouth to speak
about salvation, about the Bible, or anything of
that matter, that the Holy Spirit is just
going to automatically show up.
See, the Holy Spirit is working in people's
lives, don't get me wrong, but we need
to pray that God will manifest Himself when
we begin to minister.
And I believe that is a necessity in
our day, the likes of which that haven't
been in many years.
See, the hardness of people's hearts is great,
and you're not going to talk anybody into
getting saved.
You're not going to talk people into turning
their life over to Christ.
They need to have good old-fashioned, Holy
Ghost conviction moving to draw them near to
God.
See, ministers are ministering often in their own
power, and it's one of the great tragedies
of our day.
They lean upon their own abilities and their
own knowledge or their own training, and less
on the Spirit of God.
And this is evidenced in the absence of
genuine conversions to Christ.
And it's also evidenced in the length with
which you see people maintaining their walk before
the Lord.
You see people supposedly getting saved, and then
two weeks later, they're out of church.
Well, what happened?
They didn't genuinely get right with God.
They didn't genuinely become born again to the
Spirit of God.
For those who have experienced genuine Holy Ghost
conviction, they have not merely heard a sermon
about God, but they have been brought into
a real encounter with God.
I believe that's what is needed, especially among
our youth today and those who are really
searching for God.
They need an encounter with God, and I
believe it begins with Holy Ghost conviction.
The reality of God comes home in the
midst of great conviction.
And apart from conviction, the unbeliever may deceive
themselves into believing they're a good person and
that they really don't need God.
And apart from the moving of the Holy
Spirit, faith in Christ, for most, will simply
not seem real, and the sermon will seem
like a bunch of talk.
And I believe that's the case.
When a person gets up and they're not
anointed, you can tell right off, and God
needs to be moving and operating in what
the person is saying and doing.
When God convicts, you must repent.
See, many have the mistaken notion also that
they will repent when they get ready.
See, this is dangerous thinking because the Spirit
of God will not always strive with man.
Moreover, God will send people who continue to
sin with a high hand of spirit of
slumber.
Thomas Shepard, writing in 1645, hints these words.
When the wills and affections of men drink
at the fountains of forbidden pleasure, God will
cause them to experience spiritual drunkenness.
When they insist on imbibing the things their
hearts should be weaned from, things which should
be bitter to them, God will give them
up to this.
And in this sense, the prophet calls the
kings, the priests, and the people the drunkards
of Ephraim.
That's Isaiah 28, verse 1, and also Jeremiah
25, 15 to 18.
See, the Lord puts His cup of just
judgments, He continues, in the hands of those
He intends to destroy.
And He bids them to take pleasure in
their sins.
See, they lose all fear of death and
judgment, even when both of them are at
the very doors.
See, this is the atmosphere that exists when
there is no Holy Ghost conviction present.
But John 6, verse 44 reveals plainly that
no one can come to the Father unless
they are drawn of Him.
See, the Spirit of God is striving with
all of man to some degree.
And the intensity of this striving is greatly
increased upon an individual when men and women
travail in prayer for their soul.
You want to see people get saved?
You need to pray for them.
You need to pray.
You need to travail in prayer for them.
I was reading something about Daniel Nash just
this week, and I can't recall exactly where
the source was that it was said that
when he would go out into the groves
and he would begin to travail for the
souls of people, and he would begin to
go through his prayer list and point by
point begin to pray, people could hear him
praying in the groves a half a mile
away.
A half a mile they could hear him
praying away.
And I believe that it takes that kind
of a walk with God in order to
be able to genuinely see people come to
salvation and that kind of love for souls
as well, that they could see them and
God would hear our prayer.
The Spirit of God is striving with all
people to some degree, but the intensity of
the striving is greatly increased, I believe, when
people travail in prayer for that individual soul.
But on the other hand, as stiff-necked
sinners, as it were, refuse God, He will
give them over to their sins.
See, Isaiah 29 and 9 gives us a
glimpse into this process.
Here we read, They are drunken, but not
with wine.
They stagger, but not with strong drink.
For the Lord has poured upon them the
spirit of deep slumber, and He has closed
your eyes.
Again, Thomas Shepherd, he comments on this saying,
Sometimes it means spiritual judgments because of the
sin and therefore refers not so much to
misery in general as in spiritual misery, when
the Lord gives men up to a reprobate
spirit.
And Jeremiah speaks of the calamity of the
people and they're being dashed one against another.
And drunkenness, he says, prepares them for this
misery.
You know, that's a fearsome thing to begin
to think about what it would be like
to be able to sin and not feel
conviction.
To be able to continue in sin and
not feel conviction and not feel convicted, not
feel God moving.
Or to go into a church where God
was going and moving, but rather because you
were so hardened, you were not able to
feel what God was doing in there, not
be able to feel the Spirit of God
in your heart.
Every time you resist the Holy Ghost, when
He convicts of sin, you are that much
more difficult to reach because of the combination
of your own hardness and God's response to
your high handedness.
See, I've often told our congregation that what
happens is, is when we take a place
where God is trying to move and the
Spirit of God is moving, and as it
were, our heart is like ground often in
Scripture.
And whenever you find that the heart needs
to be tilled up or the fallow ground
is because there's a lot of hard places
there.
Well, why is the hardness present?
Well, it's because someone was quenching the Spirit.
The Bible talks about how the Spirit of
God is like rivers flowing from our belly.
That's that spaky of the Spirit.
And when we think about quenching the Holy
Spirit, we need to think about creating a
hard spot in our heart.
And it takes the Spirit of God to
come in.
And we begin to resist the Holy Spirit
when He's trying to convict us.
We are hardening ourselves, and each time we
do that, we are much more difficult to
reach than we were before.
Conviction.
A confrontation with God.
See, conviction is God personally confronting you over
your sin.
That's what conviction is.
Conviction, in part, is the illumination and the
revelation of a person's guilt before God.
Do you remember when God convicted you of
your sin?
Do you remember when you got saved?
Do you remember when you turned to God?
Do you remember how you felt and what
it felt like to be under such tremendous
conviction of sin?
Conviction, it is the added sense of the
dreadfulness of your sin beyond that which is
naturally produced in your conscience.
See, before you get saved, your conscience will
bother you.
You're worried a lot of times, well, did
someone see me, or whatever.
Or your conscience, of course, is also trying
to steer you to do right.
But this is different than Holy Ghost conviction.
God works through your conscience, of course, but
the fact is, Holy Ghost conviction is a
whole new level than just using or having
your conscience at work.
The Holy Spirit came into this world to
convince man of sin.
If you look at that word in the
Greek, it also is translated in other places
as rebuke.
You think about that.
The Holy Spirit has come to rebuke man
for their sin.
Robert Murray McCain writes, the most powerful sermon
in the world can make nothing more than
a natural impression, but when God works through
it, the feeblest word makes a supernatural impression.
That one statement there is enough to go
home with tonight.
You see, God can work just through a
few short words that we would speak if
we had spent time agonizing in prayer before
God, and could do more with that than
He could do with what the flesh would
think was the most eloquent sermon ever written.
See, because the bottom line is, if there
isn't Holy Ghost conviction, we've got serious problems.
Many a poor sermon, he continues, has been
the means by which God has converted a
soul.
Child of God, he says, oh that you
would pray night and day for the lifting
up of the arm of God.
What's he talking about?
He's talking about conviction.
He's talking about God moving.
He's talking about the importance of spending more
time in prayer for our sermon than I
believe even that we do preparing our sermon.
I believe it's important.
When God raises His arm, as it were,
to confront men and women in their sin,
they cannot help but be bowed low.
I believe that's what Holy Ghost conviction does.
See, the Holy Spirit, when He comes upon
us in our impenitence, He will begin to
bring us to where we can be humbled
before the Lord.
See, the word of God will bear fruit
on its own, even if a minister were
to get up and preach without seeking God.
But that fruit is nowhere near to the
level that God's word can produce under the
God-given unction of the Holy Ghost.
You see, people can get up because God's
word will not return into him void.
See, somebody can get up and they can
speak the word or they can read the
word and God's word is not going to
return void.
But the thing is, we need to know
that when we get up to minister, we
need the anointing of God.
We need the Spirit of God to be
present upon the people.
McCain continues, O brethren, O brethren, conviction of
sin is no slight natural work upon the
heart.
There is a great difference between knowing that
vinegar is sour and actually tasting and feeling
that it is sour.
There is a great difference between knowing that
the fire will burn us and actually feeling
the pain of being burned.
And just in the same way, there is
all the difference in the world between knowing
the dreadfulness of our sins or even as
Parris Readhead said, the enormity of our sin
and feeling the dreadfulness of your sins.
It is all in vain that you read
your Bibles and even hear us preach, McCain
says, unless the Spirit, unless the Spirit use
the words to give sense and feeling to
your dead hearts.
See, the plainest words will not awaken you
as long as you are in a natural
condition.
And if we could prove to you by
the plainness of arithmetic that the wrath of
God is abiding on you and your children,
still you would not be moved.
You would go away and forget it before
you even reached your own door.
Ah, brethren, he says, he that made your
heart can alone impress your heart.
It is the Spirit that convinces of sin.
And I believe that tonight.
I believe that.
See, this is why it is imperative that
we yield to the Spirit of God when
He is dealing with us.
It is imperative that we do so.
Genesis 6-3 tells us clearly that the
Spirit of God will not always strive with
man.
Charles Finney comments on this message in his
message titled, The Spirit Ceasing to Strive.
Here he writes, It should always be understood
that whenever the Spirit can really be said
to strive with an individual, that that individual
must be resisting.
So you think about that.
The Bible talked about, and I believe it
was Acts chapter 7, it was Stephen preaching.
He said, you do always resist the Holy
Ghost.
As your fathers did, so do ye.
But what is intended by his striving?
This striving then, I would observe, is not
a physical striving, but a moral influence, a
persuading, and a reasoning, and a convincing.
So you have to be convinced that you
are a sinner.
You have to be thoroughly convinced that you
need the grace of God.
You need to be thoroughly convinced that only
Christ can save you in your condition.
Moreover, Finney describes the great danger of those
who continually resist.
He continues, One word more.
When the Spirit strives, men are in great
danger of putting off submission day after day
till at least the Spirit leaves them.
They try to think about religion, but do
not come to the point.
Ah, they do not know the infinite danger
they are in of being left amidst all
this palavering.
Ah, while thy servant was busy here and
there, behold, the Spirit was gone.
You know, that's a fearful thing.
That is a fearful thought to think that
the Spirit of God would cease to deal
with us because we had quenched, and quenched,
and quenched the Holy Spirit.
But God warned us clearly in Genesis 6
-3 that His Spirit would not always strive
with man.
They must wait till they have done this
thing or that thing, he says.
And thus they go on.
In other words, they think in their mind,
I'll get right with God when I get
ready.
God will always be dealing with me.
He'll still be dealing with me.
He'll still be dealing with me to get
this certain thing out of my life or
that certain thing.
But what we've got to fear is that
we would find a place of hardness in
our hearts where we're no longer sensitive to
the Holy Spirit in that particular area.
And I believe that's what it means to
sear your conscience with a hot iron.
It's a dangerous thing.
But day after day, then He continues.
The Spirit strives with them till at length
He takes His flight.
You should reflect that every moment you are
resisting, you are in infinite danger of His
leaving you.
My spirit shall not always strive.
Genesis 6, 3.
See, Holy Ghost conviction is not a pleasant
thing.
It is the very revelation of your filth
and iniquity in the eyes of God.
Real Holy Ghost conviction moves beyond the emotions
and it attacks the will.
It may weigh upon a person with such
a heaviness and agony that observing it carries
a similar effect as it were to watch
a child taken to spanking.
I'm sure we've all seen that.
There's few things that are less pleasant than
having to watch a child be spanked.
And I believe that a lot of people,
when they see the Spirit of God moving
on people, especially pastors and evangelists and preachers,
they see God dealing with people and bringing
them to that place and beginning to, as
it were, bring them to a place of
brokenness and for some reason they just can't
handle it and they start intervening in all
sorts of kind of different ways.
You see, in an age of humanism, this
is nearly unacceptable.
But when the weight of God's dealing settles
down upon the people, many cannot handle it.
And they'll seek to uplift the atmosphere or
the place or the person.
You see, they'll try to uplift them.
If the sermon is getting real heavy, they'll
start to say something or lighten up or
other things like that.
I remember hearing Leonard Ravenhill talking about ministers
that would get up and say some kind
of jokes or get up or make light
of things.
One of the worst things you can do
is break the atmosphere or the moving of
the Holy Spirit when he's bringing conviction to
a people by cracking a joke or doing
something like that.
But people can't stand that intensity.
A lot of ministers can't and they need
to learn to do that because God is
dealing with people at these times.
See, this humanistic way is to lift up
a person who God has laid low in
their sins.
But God has used great conviction to humble
them.
And instead of God lifting them up, often
the minister tries to lift them up.
But that's not what the Word said.
The Bible said if you will humble yourself
before the Lord, the Lord will lift you
up.
It is not our job as ministers to
do that.
We could give an encouraging word and we
can preach the gospel to them, but we
need to let God have time to deal
with people and give a chance for the
conviction to really work through in their heart.
See, it is as though often many ministers
are trying to distract the person from the
moving of the Holy Spirit.
See, they can't handle a solemn service.
I've been in a lot of cases and
I've seen this happen even when I have
taught or ministered, there would be such a
spirit or a solemn atmosphere present where people
were really pondering and considering their sins and
all of this and people can't handle that
so they feel they need to uplift and
I believe God needs to work at those
times.
See, the great revivalists never did such a
thing.
They allowed God to do His work thoroughly.
See, the revivalists took an approach like into
the method that Ray Comfort talks about that
they would preach the law, they would show
the people their crimes before God, and then
when the people were humbled and broken, okay,
under the weight of their sin, then they
would offer them the gospel.
See, a person has to find a place
of brokenness.
They have to realize the enormity of their
sins before they could ever truly turn to
the Lord.
And I think there are a lot of
quote shallow conversions that take place because God
is not able because people would intervene or
whatever the minister, not giving God time to
move.
There's a lot of shallow conversions that are
taking place or surface conversions and these people
really weren't even changed.
And we say they backslid.
No, they were never saved.
It was because God didn't get a chance
to work, to pray and preach, pray and
preach.
Charles T.
Finney understood that without the Spirit of God
he could do nothing.
He was helpless within himself to bring men
and women to repentance and faith.
You know, we hear a lot about his
preaching, but you know, he had a prayer
partner.
Actually, he had a couple of them.
He had Abel Clary and he also had
Daniel Nash and they would pray and there
were others that would bind together with him
and pray that God would bring conviction.
I've even heard accounts that he would get
up to preach or heard it said he
would get up to preach and he couldn't
really even raise his voice because the conviction
was already so great upon the crowd that
maybe the people would just go out into
a frenzy or something if he was to
get loud so he'd have to speak.
Really softly even when he would preach because
conviction was so great.
But what he could do, what he could
do, he could pray and preach.
He could pray until he prevailed with God
and conviction of sin would come.
See, he could patiently prepare and preach.
Just like the lawyer that he studied to
be, he would spend days or even weeks
anointedly bringing a case against the people when
he preached as though they were both the
defendant and the jury.
And when it was all over, when it
was over, with the convicting power of the
Holy Spirit, the Spirit of God would compel
them to concur with the guilty verdict that
God had passed down to them already.
You see, I believe, as I said earlier,
that Holy Ghost conviction is a confrontation with
God.
God is going to confront you over your
sin.
He's going to deal with you personally.
Charles Finney utterly relied upon God when he
went to the pulpit.
He relied upon God to give him both
the right words to speak and the unction
with which to deliver them.
The results were astonishing.
They were astonishing.
It was not uncommon for the Spirit of
God to so come upon a person with
such great power that they would literally fall
out of their seats and cry out in
agony during the service.
I have never seen that happen.
I have never seen that in my day.
I have been in a lot of services
and I have never seen that.
I have been in a lot of places
where I really thought God was moving, but
I have never seen somebody cry out.
Or even as the Apostles, when they were
ministering, they would cry out, Men, what shall
we do?
See, I think one of the greatest and
most powerful sermons, and really the shortest sermon
that was ever preached, was probably by Paul
the Apostle when he said, We are all
here.
Do thyself no harm.
But the conviction was so great that God
moved within them circumstances because he was there.
And of course, we know the story.
The man was converted.
Not only was he converted, I believe he
was baptized.
Before the night was over, he was washing
the wounds of Paul the Apostle.
See, that is Holy Ghost conviction.
That is what happens when God shows up.
That is the way it was to an
extent in Charles Finney's day.
At times, the people had to be stilled,
or the preaching could not continue for the
crying and the agony.
And you think about that.
You think about God moving upon the people
to where the minister had to steel the
congregation, or just had to quit preaching altogether
and just move out into the crowd and
begin to pray with the people because the
moanings and the groanings under the enormous weight
of their sin and the conviction of the
Holy Spirit that would be present.
Lessons from the past.
See, in the fall of 1827, the Great
Awakening was well underway.
Finney had been dealing with a great resistance
to the revival at New Lebanon while preaching
there.
And the woman by the name of M
.S. almost begged Finney to come up and
say, will you come preach in my town
of Stevenson?
See, Finney was able to go.
He was able to go.
This church was in a mess.
Let me just say that.
I didn't have time to really write it
in in the notes or anything, but this
town was in a mess.
See, the church was in a mess.
The pastor had backslidden away from God.
He had become an infidel and everything and
things were in shambles.
But here was this woman that we don't
even have her name.
She's this M.S. that prevailed and prevailed
in prayer with God.
And then she went to Brother Finney and
she said, I need you to come and
preach in Stevenson.
This is the backdrop of him going.
Finally, he was able to go.
And the enemy was greatly moved to try
and stop this revival.
Finney recounts, accordingly, the next Sunday after preaching
the second time, one of the young converts
that knew Lebanon offered to take me up
to Stevenson in his carriage.
When he came in his buggy to take
me, I asked him, Have you a steady
horse?
Oh, yes, he replied.
Perfectly so.
And smiling, asked, Well, what made you ask
the question?
Because, I replied, said Finney, if the Lord
wants me to go to Stevenson, the devil
will prevent it if he can.
And if you do not have a steady
horse, he will try to make him kill
me.
He smiled and rode on.
And strange to tell, before we got there,
the horse ran away twice and nearly killed
us.
His owner expressed the greatest astonishment and said
that he had never known of such a
thing before.
You see, the devil don't want to see
holy ghost conviction.
He don't want to see a move of
God.
See, I believe the devil knew who Charles
G.
Finney was.
I believe he knew who he was.
He did everything he could to try to
stop him or to keep him from being
able to minister.
But God had other plans.
And I believe it was greatly in part
to people praying.
See, no doubt the devil knew that God
was about to pour out His Spirit on
this church that was nearly in shambles.
The former pastor of the church, who we'll
just call Mr. B., had backslidden and become
an infidel.
But there was a couple of women that
were prevailing in prayer for a move of
God in the face of insurmountable opposition.
And God answered their prayer.
See, Finney recounts some of the events of
the services as God began to move.
He said, the spirit of prayer in the
meantime had come powerfully upon me.
Now just think about that for a minute.
The spirit of prayer coming upon us.
Have you ever prayed until God anointed you
to pray?
Have you ever just prayed until the Spirit
of God came upon you and you knew
that you reached a different level because the
Spirit of God was anointing you to pray?
And you knew it was God.
That's what he's talking about.
The spirit of prayer, in the meantime, had
come powerfully upon me.
And it's been the case in time with
Miss S., the praying power so manifestly spreading
and increasing the work, so took on a
very powerful type, he said, so much so
that the word of the Lord would cut
the strongest men down and render them entirely
helpless.
Entirely helpless.
I could name many cases, he said, of
the kind.
One of the first that I recollect was
on a Sunday when I was preaching on
the text God is love.
Think about that.
That's your text.
Three words.
God is love.
There was a man by the name of
Jay, a man of strong nerves and of
considerable prominence as a farmer in that town.
He sat almost immediately in front of me
near the pulpit.
And the first that I observed was that
he fell.
He fell and writhed in agony for a
few moments.
But afterwards, he became still and nearly motionless,
but entirely helpless.
He remained in this state until the meeting
was out.
And then he was taken home.
He was very soon converted and became an
effective worker in bringing his friends to Christ.
You know, a lot of ministers probably when
they've seen that happen would have stopped preaching.
I don't believe Brother Finney did.
I believe he kept preaching.
I believe he kept preaching and kept on
just saying what God would have him to
say.
One man was sitting in the seat unable
to move.
The conviction was so great in this service.
Finney finally had to get up and go
to him.
There was another man that was on the
other side of the pulpit he talks about
during the same message that was so overpowered
by the conviction that was present that he
was unable to leave.
These were just some of the examples of
what was happening.
Charles Finney had afterward made an appointment to
preach in their schoolhouse, he writes, on that
street.
And when I arrived, the house was very
much crowded.
I took for my text, the curse of
the Lord is in the house of the
wicked.
The Lord gave me a very clear view
of the subject and I was able to
bring it out with truth effectively.
I told him that I understand that there
was not one praying family in the whole
district.
The fact is, the town was in an
awful state.
The influence of Mr. B, their former minister
now an infidel, had borne its legitimate fruit
and there was but very little conviction of
the truth and reality of religion left among
the impenitent in that town.
But you know what?
You know what?
I believe that's when a person is ripe
for a good old fashioned move of God.
This meeting, this meeting, he continues, that I
have spoken of, resulted in the conviction of
nearly all that were present, I believe, at
that meeting.
That's what I call a move of God.
A move of God is not just when
a few people get up and they come
forward and they cry maybe at the altar
or something like that.
I believe a move of God is when
the entire congregation begins to get down on
their face before God, including the pastor and
the minister.
As time went on, the revival spread.
It spread in that neighborhood and that in
one family alone there were 17 hopeful conversions.
Finney recalls, there were several families in that
town who were quite prominent and influenced who
did not attend the meetings.
It seemed that they were so much under
the influence of Mr. B that they determined
not to attend.
However, in the midst of this revival, this
Mr. B died a horrible death.
You think about that.
You think about the judgment of God that
begins to come when the Spirit of God
is present.
You see, when the Spirit of God begins
to move, I believe the margin of error,
as I've heard other people say, begins to
dwindle.
You don't want to begin to put your
mouth on the things that God's doing if
it's a genuine move of God, nor do
you want to attribute things to God that
are not Him at the same time.
But this man, Mr. B, died a horrible
death and this put an end to his
opposition.
Before it was all over, God had opened
the door to have nearly all those who
would not attend the meetings succumb and many
of them had been hopefully saved.
Praise the Lord.
The revival at Wilmington.
In conclusion, in conclusion of this lesson, I
would like to point out a situation that
Charles Finney faced that is similar to what
we see in churches today.
See, it happens he had to deal with
a group of theology students, I believe they
were, and others that were of this persuasion
that people must wait on God to act
sovereignly if there is ever going to be
a revival.
You know, if you study Charles Finney's lectures,
you know that he did not believe that.
He believed that God would move, that people
would pray and seek God's face and begin
to preach.
He believed that God would honor His Word,
He would honor the people of God, He
would honor the prayers and He would begin
to move.
This was not a view that God's sovereignty
like we would have today, but it was
one in which that lended to fatalism and
even passiveness.
It is similar to our day in this
regard, in this regard, that bad theology and
beliefs can greatly hinder a revival.
You know, there are a lot of people
that think, well, revival is not coming, there
is not going to be a revival, people
are too far gone.
No, I don't believe that.
I believe that we could prevail in prayer
before God and we could see a revival
in our own lives, in our own churches,
and in our city, our community even, our
nation, everywhere.
The traditions of men also hinder a move
of God and pride or stubbornness is a
great reason for it all.
Ideas long held and methods long held can
at times hinder the moving of God and
they can snuff out a revival.
You see, when God starts moving, you got
to get in the flow of what God
is doing.
You can't reach back to the things that
you know didn't work and begin to bring
them into what God is doing.
You need to seek the face of God.
You need to know how God is moving
and that's one thing that I appreciate about
Charles Finney.
When he would get up to preach, and
this is something, honestly, that I cannot do.
I cannot minister without notes or some type
of notes.
I don't even try to get up and
minister without notes, but he would just seek
the Lord for hours or even days and
fill himself with the Word of God.
And in so doing, he would get up
in the pulpit often without even having the
subject text to preach and just utterly lean
on the Spirit of God as he would
minister and God brought tremendous, tremendous results.
See, Charles Finney writes, As soon as I
could see my way clear to leave Steventown,
therefore, I went to Wilmington and I engaged
in labors with a man or a pastor
named Mr. Gilbert.
I soon found that his teachings had placed
the church in a position that rendered it
impossible to promote a revival among them until
their views could be corrected.
And you think about this, and there are
a lot of places that are this way.
You may not believe this, but there are
a lot of churches that I believe that
the people are dragging their feet because they
don't want to see a man of God
come in and preach.
They don't want to see a move of
God.
They don't want the Holy Spirit to move.
They say with their mouth they want the
Lord to have His way, they want God
to move, but in reality they want God
to move only in accordance with what they
want to see happen and oftentimes God ceases
to move and the Spirit of God is
basically stifled from doing what He's wanting to
do.
See, they seem to be afraid to make
any effort this people did lest they should
have to take the word, work rather, out
of the hands of God.
They have the oldest of the old school
views of doctrine and consequently their theory was
that God would convert sinners in His own
time and that therefore to urge them to
immediately repent in short is to attempt to
promote a revival or to attempt to promote
a revival was to attempt to make man
Christians by human agency or human strength and
thus to dishonor God by taking the work
out of God's hands.
But see, the fact is we have to
preach.
See, the Scripture tells you clearly how shall
they hear without a preacher and how shall
they preach unless they be sent and all
of these things are still true to this
day.
It said, I observed also and he's still
speaking here that in their prayers there was
no urgency for an immediate outpouring of the
Spirit and that this was all in accordance
with the views that they had been educated
in.
You think about this, when someone has been
educated to the place to where God can't
move that is a fearful thing.
That is a fearsome thought.
Conviction on the pastor.
See, bad theology can aid in the enemy's
ability to snuff out all desire to see
a move of God among men.
We're told in Scripture to pray to make
the gospel take the gospel to the world
but many are just waiting on God.
How many of you hear that?
Have you ever heard that?
We're just waiting on God.
Well, you know, we're just waiting on God.
You know, I believe God is waiting on
us to get on our knees and pray
and seek His face and turn from our
wicked ways and begin to search and seek
after Him so that He could send revival.
I believe God already wants to send revival.
I believe God is willing to send revival
if we would just get ourselves in a
place of prayer and begin to do what
He wants us to do.
What it often amounts to, what it often
amounts to, is an excuse.
It's an excuse for laziness and it's a
justification that's based on some kind of pretense
of piety.
Well, we just want God to move in
all this.
But what is worse, what is worse, is
when people hold views that they refuse to
admit are wrong or methods that they refuse
to admit do not work and are wrong
and are not what God is doing.
It is not what God's Word teaches even.
And they even know that they are wrong.
This would be the situation, of course, that
Finney would soon meet head on.
And we take up this story.
Finney writing says, it was plain that nothing
could be done unless Mr. Gilbert's view could
be changed upon this subject.
I therefore spent hours each day conversing with
him on his peculiar views.
We talked the subject all over in a
brotherly manner.
And after laboring him in this way for
two or three weeks, I saw that his
mind was prepared to have my own views
brought before his people.
And the next Sunday, I took for my
text, Make to yourselves a new heart and
a new spirit, for why will you die?
I went thoroughly into the subject of the
sinner's responsibility and I showed what a new
heart is not and what it is.
I preached about two hours and did not
sit down till I had gone as thoroughly
over the whole subject as very rapid speaking
would enable me to do.
Now you think about this.
He is speaking rapidly on this subject for
two hours.
And in that length of time, he says,
the congregation became intensely interested.
Great numbers rose and stood on their feet
in every part of the house.
The house was completely filled and there were
strange looks in the assembly.
Some looked distressed, some looked offended, others looked
intensely interested and not infrequently when I brought
out strongly the contrast between my own views
and the views in which they had been
instructed.
Some laughed, some wept, and some were manifestly
angry.
But one thing I want you to notice
before I go on here is that nobody
was indifferent.
No one was indifferent.
Watch this.
But I did not recollect that any got
up and left the house.
It was a strange excitement.
In the meantime, Mr. Gilbert moved himself from
one end of the sofa to the other
in the pulpit behind me.
I could hear him breathe and sigh and
could not help observing that he himself was
in his greatest anxiety.
See, when Brother Finney talks about anxiety or
people who were anxious or things like that,
he's really talking about the Spirit of God
was dealing with them.
However, I knew I had him.
And his convictions passed, but whether he would
make up his mind to withstand what had
been said by his people, I did not
know.
But I was preaching to please the Lord
and not man.
I thought that it might be the last
time I should ever preach there, but purposed
that in all events I was going to
tell them the truth, the whole truth on
that subject, whatever the result might be.
And you think about Charles Finney and you
think about that attitude and you think about
how 100,000 people were saved in the
Rochester revival.
Some accounts of 500,000 people have been
saved throughout his ministry and probably untold more.
And the influence that is with us to
this day, I have to ask one simple
question.
What is the difference between his method and
ours?
I believe it can be summed up with
that last passage that I just read and
I'll read it one more time.
He said, I purposed at all events to
tell them the truth, the whole truth on
that subject, whatever the result might be.
If it meant him not getting to preach
in that pulpit again, if it meant him
losing friends, if it meant whatever, he preached
what God would have him to preach and
that's the result of it, the results that
we read about.
The second great awakening is what we read
of.
So what happened with the pastor?
What happened with him?
What happened with the church?
The church was very much in agreement with
the message of Finney, but he was not
out of the woods yet.
I must also remark here, I must remark
this, and I think this is very true,
it would be a sad thing that God
would have to raise up a whole generation
of young preachers, and I believe he's doing
that.
I believe he's doing that.
To replace those who refuse to minister the
true gospel for whatever reason.
I believe God's raising up a generation.
I've heard the likes of people like Brother
Jesse minister in his messages, and as a
matter of fact, I've even passed his messages
on, even today I've passed one of his
messages on to a young man and he's
only been out of prison several months and
he was greatly touched by this message that
he administered and given his testimony and all
that, and I believe God is raising up
a lot of young people that are going
to tell the truth no matter what the
cost is, whether they ever get to go
back and preach at that church again, whether
they ever get to go back and speak
at the youth meeting again, whether they ever
get to go back or whatever the case
may be, they're going to preach what God
has to say, and I believe that.
So what happened to him?
What happened to him?
They were not out of the woods.
You see, we see this in our day
as well.
We see it in our day.
Humanism, religion, secularism has so influenced preaching that
I am afraid that most have even lost
sight of what true preaching really is.
You see, I believe what was considered preaching
today would be considered teaching probably in the
days of sinning.
I wonder what it would be like to
sit and hear this man minister because he
created a tremendous stir when he would minister
about his methods, about the things he preached,
and all of this.
You don't get this by getting up and
just teaching something.
You get this by doing something that the
people have never seen before.
See, Finney later went to his house, the
house of the pastor, Mr. Gilbert, and here
he recounts, When I arrived at Mr. Gilbert's,
his wife accosted me as soon as I
entered.
She said, Mr. Finney, how dare you preach
such a thing in our pulpit?
See, that's the mentality right there that you
can see automatically something was wrong.
Think about this question.
Mr. Finney, how dare you preach any such
thing in our pulpit?
See, the first problem with this statement is
that, first of all, it's not our pulpit.
See, when we get up to speak and
we get behind the sacred death, we had
better speak what saith the Lord.
It's not our pulpit.
We are a steward of it.
It's God's pulpit.
I replied, Finney speaking, Mr. Gilbert, I do
not dare to preach anything else.
It is the truth of God.
She replied, well, it is true that God
was injustice bound to make an atonement for
mankind.
I have always felt it, though I never
dared to say it.
I believe that if the doctrine preached by
Mr. Gilbert was true, God was under obligation
as a matter of justice to make an
atonement to save me from those circumstances in
which it was impossible for me to help
myself from a condemnation which I did not
deserve.
You think about the theology that this woman
had.
This woman believed that God, perhaps if I
could just speculate for just a minute, she
had so believed God to be the author
of all things that she believed if this
was true, then likewise my sin was also
God's design.
Therefore, he could only be just and would
be under obligation to make atonement for sin.
Therefore, she had no appreciation for the cross.
She never felt any kind of condemnation for
her sin.
She thought it was all foreordained.
See, new school to them, old school to
us.
Just at this moment, Mr. Gilbert entered.
There, said I, Brother Gilbert, you see the
results of your preaching here and in your
own family.
And then I repeated to him what his
wife had just said.
He replied, I have sometimes thought that my
wife was one of the most pious women
that I had ever knew, and at other
times I thought that she had no religion
at all.
Why, I exclaimed, she has always thought that
God owed her as a matter of justice
the salvation provided in Christ.
How could she be a Christian?
This was all said by each of us
with the greatest solemnity and earnestness.
Upon my making the last remark, she got
up and left the room.
The house was very solemn, and for two
days I believe I did not see her.
You think about that.
A woman so shut up and shut away
that for two days she was out of
sight.
She came then, she came out clear rather,
not only in the truth, but in the
state of her own mind, Finney says, having
passed through a complete revolution of views and
experience.
From this point the work went forward.
And I think about that.
You know, that's what Charles Finney faced in
his day.
You know, maybe you're here tonight, or maybe
you're listening to this sermon tonight.
And you would say, you know, the places
that I would go to preach, that there
are theologies, there are philosophies, there are methods,
there are ideas, there are thoughts, there are
thoughts, there are ideas, there are thoughts, there
are ideas, there
are thoughts,
there are ideas, there are ideas, there are
thoughts, thoughts, there
are ideas, there are thoughts, thoughts, there are
ideas, there are is why today that we
have not seen the life of Charles Finney
when I talk to ministers, no matter how
old they are, I talk about Charles Finney,
I talk about his methods and messages, so
oftentimes they look with amazement and shock at
what they're hearing.
Because even in all of their years, they
could not imagine ministry like that.
You see, it was new school to him,
but it's old school to us.
But would to God that we would employ
it in our day.
In closing, I would just like to simply
ask, are you willing to return to the
old path of preaching with Holy Ghost conviction?
Are you willing to pray and to fast
until the Spirit of God descends upon the
congregation with great power and conviction?
Are you willing to see God to confront
the unrepentant personally, personally for their sins?
Can you bear the weight of a solemn
service for hours or maybe even days?
Finally, what level of conviction is needed in
our day of declension?
Would it not be greater than the days
of Charles Finney?
Would it not be greater than in the
days when people would fall out of their
seats or cry out in agony for mercy
for their sins?
How much prayer and fasting will it take
to raise, as it were, the hand of
God's Holy Ghost conviction to meet handily with
the high-handedness of our times?
Heavenly Father, Lord, Lord, I disclose tonight.
Lord, I've heard this message that I feel
is so burning in my soul and my
spirit and my heart.
Lord, maybe someone tonight is listening to this
message.
Lord, maybe they just need to be encouraged
along just to say what saith the Lord.
Maybe God has been dealing with them and
dealing with them.
Lord, maybe you've been dealing and they will
not minister.
And maybe tonight, God, you will just press
them one more time to speak the words
that you would have them say, to have
the boldness that Charles Finney had, even the
face of the pastor disagreeing, maybe, or even
the congregation disagreeing.
God, that we would follow the leading of
your spirit.
Lord, that we would not be presumptuous in
our ways, but God, we would do what
saith the Lord, that we would have the
boldness to do it.
God, I also pray tonight that you would
bring upon us that spirit of prayer that
Charles Finney so talked about.
Lord, the spirit of prayer that would come
upon Daniel Nash, Lord, God, or Abel Clary,
Lord, when they would pray for days, days,
sometimes even weeks, fasting as they prayed to
see a move of God among the people.
Lord, give us an urgency.
God, I pray that an urgency would come
upon the hearts of the people, the likes
of which, God, they have never known.
Lord, I pray that if it is necessary,
God, that you would wake people up in
the wee hours of the night and begin
to seek your face, Lord God.
Lord, in the quiet times, Lord, that they
would walk with you.
Lord, they would get rid of the secret
sin or the things in their life that
is standing between you and them.
God, the things that are standing between you
answering their prayers or not.
For God, if we regard iniquity in our
heart, surely you will not hear us.
God, I pray for everyone listening tonight.
God, I pray even for myself, Lord, that
you would send once again a double portion
of your spirit, a double portion of Holy
Ghost conviction into my life, God.
Convict me even, I pray, God, of the
pride of the things, Lord, of the sin
that would try to come in and creep
in.
God, walk with me.
God, convict me, Lord.
God, I want to hear your voice.
God, I want to hear you speak to
me, God.
I want to be in that place with
you.
Lord, I pray for sermon index, finally, God.
Lord, that your hand would be upon them.
God, that when people would come to this
site, Lord, that they would feel Holy Ghost
conviction.
Lord, that they would be convicted, God, Lord,
of their sin, that they would be convicted,
Lord, to even want to begin to share
the gospel with others, begin to walk upright
with you, O God.
Lord, we pray these things.
Lord, we pray that you would protect even
the service again, God.
Lord, we pray that you protect each and
every one.
Keep your hand upon us, O God.
Anoint each and every one of us as
we go to minister, I pray, in Christ's
name.
Amen.