For this opportunity to be here, God, we're
thankful to come together with those, Lord, who
desire revival.
Lord, we just pray tonight, Lord, that your
hand would be upon us.
Lord, that your hand would be upon our
equipment, that it would be upon our hearts.
Lord, that we would have a desire, Lord,
an overwhelming desire to see revival.
Lord, I pray for Sermon Index, God, and
those that are here tonight, Lord, that you
would touch all of our ears and hearts,
God, that we would hear.
God, that our hearts would be changed by
this message.
Lord, something maybe that is said, Lord, from
this message from the past, Lord, would touch
hearts when we ask these things.
In Christ's name, amen.
Praise the Lord.
I've entitled our study tonight, Overwhelming Conviction, and
we're going to look at some of the
accounts of the revival that took place in
Rome, New York, around the latter part of
1825.
Rome is a city that is situated today
in Oneida County, New York.
It's about 35,000 people or so.
The city has a long history.
Actually, you can trace it back really even
to the 1600s, but Fort Stanwyck was built
there as a military guard post in the
1700s.
As a result, they had begun to build
the village of Rome around that.
In the latter part of 1825, the Reverend
Moses Jallet, pastor of the Congregational Church in
Rome, and one of his assistants heard what
the Lord was doing in Western.
They came to see what was going on.
They were both greatly impressed with what God
was doing.
Charles Finney recalls that he could see that
the Spirit of God was stirring them up,
as he put it, to the very deepest
foundations of their minds.
After a few days, Mr. Jallet and his
associate, Miss H., came up again to see
him.
Miss H.
was a very devout and earnest Christian girl.
On their second trip coming up, Mr. Jallet
said to Brother Finney, He said, It seems
to me that I have a new Bible.
I never before understood the promises as I
do now.
I never got a hold of them before,
he said, and I cannot rest.
My mind is full of the subjects, and
the promises are new to me.
As I make note here, this is but
an example, one example, of the profound effect
upon the lives of those who attended the
meetings of Charles Finney.
I can honestly say that to this very
day, the revival accounts and the sermons that
are left behind are certainly inspiring, and I
believe there is much that we can learn
from them by studying them.
Trading Places When the revival was in full
strength at Western, Mr. Jallet persuaded Finney to
exchange a Sunday with him.
Mr. Jallet was going to preach at Western,
and Finney was going to preach at Rome.
See, Finney consented, but reluctantly.
He didn't want to do this.
But on the Saturday before the day of
the exchange, while on his way to Rome,
he had greatly regretted that he had even
consented to make this exchange.
You see, he was afraid that Mr. Jallet
was going to preach some of his old
sermons.
And he knew very well that they could
not be adapted to the revival that was
going on.
See, when God begins to send a revival,
there is going to be a fresh word
from God.
And I believe that people need to be
in prayer and seeking God, the ministers in
particular, and knowing what God is saying at
that moment.
You can't just go back and dig up
some old notebooks where you have a bunch
of old sermons, some old standbys, and think
that God is going to use that.
This was Finney's concern.
See, he knew that these old sermons of
Mr. Jallet's could not be adapted to work
in this revival.
But he consented nevertheless to trade places with
him.
He was going to go and preach in
Rome.
Mr. Jallet was going to go back to
Western and preach where revival was already in
progress.
But the people were praying, Finney says, so
he felt a bit better knowing that it
may stifle the work.
It may not stifle the work, rather, but
it could in fact hinder it.
But nevertheless, God would work and everything would
be alright.
He went to Rome and he preached three
times on Sunday.
See, as Charles Finney preached the word, the
word of God took a great effect.
He writes that he could see during the
day that many of the people's heads were
actually down.
And that a great number of the people
were bowed down with the great conviction of
sin.
See, in the morning service he had preached
from the text, the carnal mind is enmity
against God.
And he follows it up with something similar
in the afternoon and the evening services.
And when Mr. Jallet returned from Western the
following day, he did not realize that God
was beginning to move with such power.
He decided he was going to call for
what they would call inquirers.
To see if anyone in the congregation was
inquiring, for example, about their salvation or about
their soul.
And he wanted Charles Finney to be present.
Inquirers are people who are anxious about their
spiritual condition and may perhaps desire the plan
of salvation.
This isn't a term that we really use
today, but just to give you an idea
of some of his language, that's the word
they're using.
We must remember that this was at a
time when altar calls were not offered after
each sermon as we would see it today.
We're accustomed to having altar calls given in
our services, at least in many services, especially
evangelical services.
People are offered an opportunity to come forward
or whatever the case may be.
But this was a relatively new thing that
Charles Finney was, of course, very much responsible
for bringing to pass.
Charles Finney implemented altar calls as a further
expression of what was formerly called sitting in
the anxious seat.
See, they used to have a few rows
of pews that would be toward the front
of the church.
As I understand it, the people would come
under great conviction if they wanted to inquire
about their salvation, they would go up and
sit in the front part of the church.
Before, when people were concerned about their souls,
they would be taken to a back room
and they were counseled and then there they
were prayed for.
The altar call is one method that many
scholars attribute directly to Charles Finney.
So we can sort of think Charles Finney
for the altar call in the way that
at least it's conducted in modern times.
Methods of preaching revival that Finney used.
See, Finney personally recounts his methods of preaching
as follows.
He said this, he said, I have said
before that the means that I had used
all along thus far in promoting revivals were
much prayer, secret and social, in other words,
praying in secret and also praying in like
prayer groups, public preaching, personal conversation, in other
words, like personal witnessing and talking about the
things of God and visitation from house to
house.
And when inquirers became multiplied, I appointed meetings
for them and invited those who were inquiring
to me for instruction suited to their necessities.
These were the means and the only means
Charles Finney said that I had used thus
far in attempting to secure the conversion of
souls.
It's helpful to keep in mind that Charles
Finney comparatively was a young Christian when he
began to preach revivals and he wasn't a
seasoned Christian that had been serving the Lord
for 20 years when God began using him.
See, God started using Charles Finney almost right
off in his Christian walk and he started
using him for revivals.
See, a meeting for anxious inquirers was held
and Mr. DeLay asked Charles Finney to be
present and when he arrived back to visit
from Western, he found the large sitting room
crowded to its utmost capacity.
Finney recounts, Mr. DeLay looked around with surprise
and manifest disturbance for he found that the
meeting was composed of many of the most
intelligent and influential members of his congregation and
especially was largely composed of prominent young men
in the town.
See, you can't always just assume that people
are right with God because they come to
church.
We can't always just assume that because someone
may be highly intelligent or knowledgeable about the
word that they are really where they need
to be.
We spent a little time, he continues, while
attempting to converse with them and I soon
saw that the feeling was so deep that
there was a danger of an outburst of
feeling that would become almost uncontrollable.
Now this is one of the first portions
that we are going to discuss tonight where
Charles Finney describes a level of conviction to
the place where it would become very difficult.
You would really have to be almost controlled
by the Holy Spirit just to keep the
service itself in control because conviction would be
so great.
I therefore said to Mr. DeLay, it will
not do to continue this meeting in this
shape.
I will make some remarks such as they
need and I will dismiss them.
Nothing had been said or done to create
any excitement in this meeting.
The conviction that the people felt was spontaneous.
See, the Spirit of God was working with
such power that saying anything would make, as
Finney put it, the stoutest man writhe on
their seats as if a sword had been
thrust into their hearts.
See, it's near impossible in our day for
a person who has never witnessed such a
scene to realize what force the truth sometimes
exerts under the power of the Holy Ghost.
See, Finney continues, it was indeed a sword.
It was a two-edged sword.
The pain that it produced when searchingly presented
in only a few words of conversation would
create a distress that seemed almost unendurable.
See, we have not seen conviction like that.
And I believe if we're going to have
revival in our day with the level of
hardness of heart that we see today and
the level of gospel hardness that we see
in our times, there is going to have
to be tremendous conviction to see that come
to pass.
Obviously, Mr. Gillette had never saw such conviction
and became very disturbed.
Finney says that he turned pale and he
called out to him, What shall we do?
What shall we do?
And Finney said, I put my hands on
his shoulder and in a whisper I said,
Keep quiet.
Keep quiet, Brother Gillette.
Finney then addressed the people in as gentle
but plain a manner as he could, calling
their attention to their only remedy and assuring
them that it was a present and an
all-sufficient one.
Finney recounts, I pointed them to Christ as
the Savior of the world and I kept
on this strain as long as they could
well endure it, which indeed was only a
few minutes.
Think about conviction like that.
You think about conviction so strong that the
man of God is not even able to
speak or to preach or to minister because
just preaching and ministering creates a situation where
the conviction becomes so great that the people
cannot hardly endure it.
Mr. Gillette became so agitated that I stepped
up to him and, taking him by the
arm, I said, Let us pray.
We knelt down in the middle of the
room, Finney continues, where he had been standing.
I led in prayer and in a low,
unimpassioned voice interceded with the Savior to interpose
His blood then and there and to lead
all the sinners to accept the salvation which
He offered and to believe to the saving
of their souls.
See, the distress of the people deepened every
moment.
And Finney says, As I could hear their
sobs and their sighs, I closed my prayer
and I rose up suddenly from my knees.
They all arose with me and I said
this, Now please, go home without speaking a
word to each other.
Try to keep silent and don't break out
in any kind of boisterous manifestation of feeling.
But go on without saying a word to
your room.
The conviction became so great upon the people
that Finney had to use great wisdom and
care just to keep the situation decent and
in order.
The people were on the brink of breaking
down or going into an all-out outburst.
But Finney dismissed them to their rooms.
See, this is another great example where modern
ministers would feel the need to intervene into
God's working or to give an alter call
or whatever, but Finney did not.
Finney recalls what happens next.
At this moment, a young man by the
name of Mr. W., a clerk in Mr.
H.'s store, being one of the first young
men in the place, nearly so fainted that
he fell upon some of the young men
that stood near him and all of them
partially swooned away and fell together.
This had hardly happened that it produced a
loud shrieking, but I hushed them down, Finney
said, and I said to these young men,
please set that door wide open and go
out and let all of you retire in
silence.
They did as I requested.
They did not shriek, but they all went
back to their rooms sobbing and sighing, and
their sobs and sighs could be heard till
they got well out into the street.
This Mr. W., to whom I have alluded,
which was of course the store clerk, kept
silence till he entered the door where he
lived, but he could not contain himself any
longer.
He shut the door.
He fell on the floor and burst out
into a loud wailing in view of his
awful condition.
See, this brought the family all around him
in a scattered conviction among the whole of
them.
When I think about this particular incident that
took place, again I have to go back
to the jailer in Paul's day and how
talking about how the Scripture talks about our
whole family can be saved.
You know, when the people in our family
and our friends and the people that we
work with see the dramatic change in the
conversion that takes place in our life, it
can bring conviction.
God can use that in their life.
And we're seeing a prime example of this
in this account that Finney gives.
See, God used the broken condition of this
man to preach a sermon to his whole
family.
In light of what they had heard preached
and saw in this man, see, God poured
out conviction upon them also.
This happened in several homes with different people
who would fall under conviction.
What a powerful means to bring salvation to
an entire house.
Think about it.
What a powerful means to bring salvation to
a whole house.
When the family watched the reaction of this
man to what God was doing in themselves,
they rightly responded.
They became partakers of God's grace.
See, Finney wrote that the people who were
converted in this way, people who would be
converted in such a way that they saw
their sin as for what it was and
they fell before the Lord in great humility
and great agony before God, would end up
with such a joy that they were unable
afterwards to contain themselves.
See, the joy of the Lord is our
strength.
But that joy oftentimes flows out of the
brokenness that comes when we rightly respond to
what God is doing.
Waking up under conviction.
Think about this.
Waking up under conviction.
Finney recalls the events of the following day.
He writes, The next morning, as soon as
was fairly day, people began to call at
Mr. Gillette's to have us go and visit
members of their families whom they represented as
being under the greatest conviction.
We took a hasty breakfast and we started
out.
As soon as we were in the streets,
the people ran out from many houses and
begged us to go into their homes.
As we could only visit but one place
at a time, we went into one house
and many neighbors would rush in and fill
even the largest room.
We would stay and give them instruction.
Then he says for a short time, then
we'd go to another house and the people
would follow us.
We found the most extraordinary state of things.
Convictions were so deep and universal that we
would sometimes go into a house and find
some people in a kneeling posture and some
prostrate on the floor.
We visited and conversed and prayed in this
manner from house to house until noon.
Finally, I said to Mr. Gillette, this will
never do.
We must have a meeting of inquiry.
We cannot go from house to house and
we are not meeting the needs of the
people at all.
He agreed with me, but the question arose,
where should we have this meeting?
There's a man by the name of Mr.
F.
who had a hotel that could be used
if they could just simply gain permission.
Without difficulty, they obtained consent and then went
immediately to the public schools with the notice
that at one o'clock there was going
to be a meeting, a meeting of inquiry,
that is, at the hotel.
They went home, they ate dinner and started
back for the meeting.
Penny Despini describes this scene as he neared
the hotel.
We saw people hurrying, he says, and some
of them were actually running to the meeting.
They were coming from every direction.
By the time we were there, the room,
though a large one, was crammed to its
utmost capacity.
Men and women crowded the apartment.
This meeting was very much like the one
that we had had the night before.
The feeling or the conviction was overwhelming.
Some men of the strongest nerves were so
cut down by the remarks which were made
that they were unable to help themselves and
they had to be taken home by their
friends.
Think about that.
Think about conviction, where people had to be
taken home by their friends.
This meeting lasted until nearly night.
It resulted in a great number of hopeful
conversions and was the means of greatly extending
the work on every side.
You see, when we think about Holy Ghost
conviction today, we think, well, God, this is
dealing with someone in the closing two or
three minutes of a sermon that is given,
but this is not at all the case
here with Charles Finney.
Not at all.
The people had to be carried out from
the meetings.
Conviction in the courthouse.
When Charles Finney preached that evening, Mr. Gallais
appointed a meeting for inquiring for the next
morning in the courthouse.
A meeting was held in the morning and
again later in the evening.
Finney recounts the evening service.
He said, The meeting was hardly begun before
the conviction deepened so much that to prevent
an undesirable outburst of overwhelming feeling, I proposed
to Mr. Gallais that we would dismiss the
meeting and request the people to go in
silence and Christians to spend the evening in
secret prayer or in family prayer as might
seem most desirable.
Sinners were exhorted not to sleep until they
had given their hearts to God.
After this, the work became so general that
I preached every night, I think, watch this,
for twenty nights in succession.
Now, this is a man who gets up
to preach who doesn't even use notes.
This is a man that often gets up
to preach who doesn't even know what sermon
text he's getting ready to preach from when
he takes the pulpit.
This is a man that's nothing for him
to preach for two hours at a time
and he has preached twenty nights in succession
and twice on Sunday.
Our prayer meetings during this time, he said,
were held in the church in the daytime.
The meeting was held one part of the
day and the meeting for inquiring on the
other part.
In other words, you would have a prayer
meeting and then later there would be a
meeting and inquiring in case there were people
who wanted to give their life to the
Lord and know the plan of salvation, as
it were.
Every day, if I remember right, after the
work had thus commenced, we held a prayer
meeting and a meeting for inquiry with preaching
in the evening.
So this is three events taking place each
day.
There was a solemnity throughout the whole place
and an awe that made everybody feel that
God was there.
See, I believe that's the type of revival
that I hear when I begin to hear
people talk about revival that are really desperate
to see God move.
I remember listening to some of the messages
that actually the last messages that Leonard Ravenhill
probably ever ministered and when you hear him
ministering, though he's growing towards or into even
his eighties, you can hear the desperation for
revival in his voice.
And I believe this is what he's talking
about.
When we hear what Charles Finney is saying,
there was a solemnity, he said, throughout the
whole place and an awe that made everybody
feel that God was there.
That's the type of revival that will bring
conviction.
That's the type of revival that will change
people's hearts.
Beginnings of the altar call.
See, Charles Finney believed that when a person
was truly converted, they should make a public
confession or profession of their faith.
This was a departure from previous methods that
simply took a kind of a wait-and
-see approach.
See, Finney believed that a person could be
brought to salvation at once after they had
gone through the process of conversion.
While under great conviction, the people were often
invited to sit in what they called the
anxious seat in the front of the meeting
place.
Then he would occasionally ask the people even
to stand up if they intended to serve
Christ.
Other times, he called them forward once there
was some certainty that they had been saved.
See, a term that you'll hear frequently or
see frequently when you're studying Finney's works is
this term, hopefully converted.
Hopefully converted.
He never told people, you're saved.
You're good to go.
You're alright.
You never did this.
I don't find that in studying his writings.
What he may say is that the person
was hopefully converted.
See, not knowing the hearts of men, it
is impossible to fully know who was saved.
But upon seeing proofs of repentance and a
verifiable and compelling evidence, Finney would consider them
hopefully converted.
See, a tree is known by its fruit.
It is known by its fruit.
Jesus was very clear about this and so
was John the Baptist.
He felt as though he had been shot.
For the latter part of this particular study
that we're doing tonight, we're going to look
at some pretty strong and I believe moving
accounts of revival.
I believe they're some of the most powerful
things that I have ever read.
See, as this revival continued, ministers came in
from neighboring towns and expressed great astonishment at
what they saw and heard.
Conversions were multiplying so rapidly that there was
no way to know who was converted.
Therefore, every evening at the close of the
sermon, Finney requested that all who had been
converted that day would come forward in front
of the pulpit that he might have a
conversation with them.
They were every night surprised by the number
and class of persons that came forward.
Finney accounts in another meeting, he says that
one of our morning prayer meetings, the lower
part of the church was full.
I arose and was making some remarks to
the people when an unconverted man, a merchant,
came into the meeting.
He came along until he found a seat
in front of me near to where I
was speaking.
He had sat but a few moments, but
a few moments, when he fell from his
seat as if he had been shot.
He writhed and groaned in a terrible manner.
I stepped to the pew door and saw
that he was altogether in agony of mind.
A skeptical doctor sat near him.
He stepped up out of the slip, came
and examined this man who was thus distressed.
He felt his pulse and examined him for
a few minutes.
He said nothing, but then he turned away.
He leaned his head against the post that
supported the gallery and manifested a great agitation.
He said afterward that he saw at once
that it was distress of mind and it
took away his skepticism entirely.
He was soon after himself, hopefully converted.
We engaged in prayer for the man who
fell in the pew.
Before he left the house, I believe, his
anguish had passed away and he rejoiced in
Christ.
Then he tells of another story about another
physician, another doctor, a very amiable man, but
he was a skeptic that had a little
daughter and a praying wife, little H as
he called her, a girl perhaps eight or
nine years old.
She was strongly convicted of her sin and
her mother was greatly interested in her state
of mind, but her father was, of course,
quite indignant.
He said to his wife, the subject of
religion is too high for me.
I never could understand it.
And do you tell me that a little
child understands it so to be intelligently convicted
of sin?
He said, I do not believe it.
I know better.
I cannot endure it.
It is fanaticism.
It is madness.
Nevertheless, the mother of the child held fast
in prayer.
The doctor made these remarks with a good
deal of spirit and immediately he took his
horse, went several miles to see a patient,
and on his way he afterwards remarked, the
issue took possession of his mind in such
a manner that it was all opened up
to his understanding and the whole plan of
salvation by Christ was so clear to him
that he saw that a child could understand
it.
He wondered that it had ever seemed such
a mystery to him.
He regretted exceedingly that he had said what
he had to his wife about his daughter
and he felt to make haste to get
home that he might take it all back.
He soon came home a new man.
He told his wife what had passed in
his mind, encouraged his daughter, the Lach, to
come to Christ, and both father and daughter
have since been earnest Christians and have lived
long and have done much good.
You know, that is one of the most
moving accounts of somebody turning their life to
Christ that I can really ever remember reading.
Here was a young child that was under
conviction of sin.
A lot of people think, well, you know,
children aren't old enough.
I have to disagree with that.
There comes a time when God can move
on them and there are a lot of
people who have served God from their childhood,
and in this case, turned the life of
her own father around.
God used that to even bring him to
Christ.
Judgment at the doors during real revival, and
we're going to change gears a bit here.
Judgment at the doors during great revival or
a real revival.
When the Spirit of God is near, it
is dangerous to get out alive.
The priests found this out in the Old
Testament, and Ananias and Sapphira found it out
in the New Testament.
Perhaps one of the great reasons revival tarries
is that people do not reverence the presence
of God.
See, I talked about this at the end
of last year, I believe it was.
I told our whole congregation, I said that
I believe that if we could get to
a place where people would truly reverence and
fear the Lord in the house and stop
taking the things of God so lightly and
move into that position, God would begin to
move in our church.
He would move like never before.
Have you ever stopped to consider, have you
ever stopped to consider that maybe God is
showing mercy by withdrawing from our midst?
Have you ever thought of that?
When God comes near, He will judge sin.
He will call people out of a whirlwind,
as it were, and He will demand answers.
He will shout sins from the housetops, or
He will smite people dead for their secret
sin, right where they stand.
When pride arises in men's hearts as it
did in Herod in the book of Acts,
the angel of the Lord will stand near
and smite them for simply not giving God
the glory.
There's another thing that happens.
God does not get the glory for the
things that He does, and it's a great
hindrance to seeing a revival.
Job learned a fearful lesson, what it was
like to have a confrontation with God.
God told him, Stand on your feet like
a man.
I will question you.
Job 38.3 As a matter of fact,
God told him that twice in that passage
from Job 38 on to Job chapter 41.
We forget that this is the same Christ
who told the church at Thyatira He would
smite their children with death and He would
cast the fornicators into a bed of great
tribulation if they would not repent.
You see, God is an awesome God.
The King James uses that word terrible.
He is an awesome God.
And until we realize this, there will either
be no revival or revival will bring with
it all manner of judgments the likes of
which we have none beheld.
I believe that.
I believe that when God's presence is near,
judgment is swift.
Charles Finney offers us a glimpse once again
as he does many times into what happens
when people get out of line during a
genuine revival.
Here we read, But in this revival, as
in others that I have known, God did
some terrible things in righteousness.
On one Sunday while I was there, as
we came out of the pulpit and were
about to leave the church, a man came
in haste, a Mr. Gallet and myself, and
requested us to go to a certain place
saying that a man had fallen down dead
there.
I was engaged in conversation with somebody and
Mr. Gallet went alone.
When I was through with that conversation, I
went to his house and he soon returned
and related this fact.
Three men who had been opposing the revival
had met that Sunday day and spent the
day in drinking and ridiculing of this work.
They went on in this way until one
of them fell suddenly down dead.
When Mr. Gallet arrived at the house and
the circumstances were related to him, he said
that there is no doubt but that this
man had been stricken down by God and
has been sent to hell.
You think of the fearsomeness of that.
You think about people just falling over dead
because they are opposing what God is trying
to do.
Even the Jewish man Gamaliel had the good
sense to know that you don't want to
fight against the working of God.
And if there is a genuine revival taking
place, we need to keep ourselves in check.
See, his companions were speechless.
They could say nothing.
For it was evident to them that their
conduct had brought upon him this awful stroke
of divine indignation.
Then he believed that it was God's judgment
that had come upon him.
And as you study his autobiography, you'll find
several accounts where people suddenly fell over dead
who were opposing revivals.
Great fear came upon the people and many
were saved.
As the revival proceeded, it gathered in nearly
the whole population.
Nearly every one of the lawyers, the merchants,
the physicians, and almost all the principal men,
and indeed nearly all the adult population of
the village, the account says, were brought in,
especially those who belonged to Mr. Gillette's congregation.
He said to me before I left, so
far as my congregation is concerned, the millennium
has come already.
My people are all converted.
Of all my past labors, I have not
a sermon that is suited at all to
my congregation.
That's a word there.
He said, of all my past labors, I
do not have a sermon that is even
suited to my congregation, for they are all
Christians.
Mr. Gillette afterward reported that during the 20
days that I spent at Rome, then he
said, there were 500 conversions in that town.
500 people that were hopefully converted.
The revival spreads.
During the progress of this revival, a good
deal of excitement sprung up also in Utica,
and some ridiculed the revival at Rome.
Mr. E., who lived at Rome, was a
very prominent citizen and was regarded as standing
at the head of society there.
He was a point of wealth and intelligence,
but he was skeptical, or perhaps, Finney said,
I should say, he held Unitarian views.
He was a very moral and respectable man.
He held his peculiar views, unobtrusively saying very
little to anybody about them.
Finney recounts, the first Sunday I preached there,
Mr. H.
was present, and he was so astonished as
he afterwards told me at my preaching that
he had made up his mind that he
was not going to come again.
He went home and said to his family,
that man is mad.
I would not be surprised if this man
set the town on fire.
He stayed away from the meeting for two
weeks, but in the meantime, the work becomes
so great as to confound his skepticism, and
he was in a state of great perplexity.
He was president of the bank at Utica
and used to go down to attend the
weekly meeting of the directors.
On one of these occasions, one of the
directors began to rally him on the state
of the things in Rome, as if they
were all running mad there.
Mr. H.
remarked, gentlemen, say what you will, but there
is something very remarkable in the state of
things in Rome.
Certainly no human power or eloquence has produced
what we see there.
I cannot understand it.
You say it will soon subside?
No doubt the intensity of feeling that is
now in Rome must soon subside, or the
people will become insane.
But gentlemen, he said, there is no accounting
for the state of feeling by any philosophy
unless there was something divine in it.
See, this man here obviously didn't even know
the Lord, but he had the good sense
to realize that men do not speak like
this and bring about these types of results
that God had to be working.
Preaching without fear or favor, Finney continues, after
Mr. H.
stayed away from the meeting about two weeks,
a few of us assembled one afternoon to
make him the special subject of prayer.
The Lord gave us a strong faith while
we were praying for him.
We felt the conviction that the Lord was
going to work out in his soul that
evening.
He came to the meeting.
When he came into the house, Mr. Gillette
whispered to me, as he sat in the
pulpit, he said, Brother Finney, Mr. H.
has come.
I hope you'll not say anything that's going
to offend him.
No, said I, but I will not spare
him.
In those days, I was obliged to preach
altogether without premeditation.
In other words, he didn't even think about
what he was going to preach when he
got up to the pulpit.
Listen to this, for I did not have
even an hour in a week which I
could take to arrange my thoughts in advance.
I chose my subject and preached.
The word took a powerful hold and as
I hoped and intended, it took a powerful
hold on Mr. H.
himself.
I think it was that very night when
I requested the close of the meeting.
All those who had been converted that day
and evening to come forward and report themselves
that Mr. H.
was one who came deliberately and solemnly forward.
He reported himself as having given his heart
to God.
He appeared humble and penitent and I have
always supposed was truly converted to Christ.
And you gotta keep in mind that Finney's
accounts of revival were written decades after the
fact.
Looking back, he said, I've always supposed that
he was truly converted.
Corporate conviction, corporate conviction and we're winding down.
Charles Finney tells of the overwhelming conviction that
existed over the entire town when he preached.
He describes the situation saying the stated things
in the village and in the neighborhood roundabout
was such that no one could come into
the village without feeling awestruck and with the
impression that God was there in a peculiar
and wonderful way.
As an illustration of this, Finney says, I
will relate an incident.
The sheriff of the county resided in Utica.
There were two courthouses in the county, one
in Rome and the other in Utica.
Consequently, the sheriff, B by name, had much
business in Rome.
He afterwards told me that he had heard
of the stated things in Rome and he,
together with the others, had a good deal
of laughing in the hotel where he boarded
about what they had heard.
But one day it was necessary for him
to go to Rome.
He said that he was glad to have
business there for he wanted to see for
himself what it was that people so talked
about and what the stated things really was
in Rome.
He drove on in his one horse sleigh
and he told me without any particular impression
upon his mind at all until he crossed
what is called the old canal, a place
about a mile, I think, Finney says, from
the town.
He said as soon as he crossed the
old canal a strange impression came over him
and all so deep that he could not
shake it off.
He felt as if God pervaded the whole
atmosphere.
He said that this increased the whole way
until he came to the village.
He stopped at Mr. F's hotel and the
hostler came out and took his horse.
He observed, he said, that the hostler looked
just as he himself felt as if he
was afraid to speak.
He went into the house and found a
gentleman there with whom he had business.
He said that they were manifestly all much
impressed.
They could hardly even attend to their business.
He said that several times in the course
of the short time he was there that
he had to get up from the table
abruptly and go over to the window and
look out to try to divert his own
attention or to keep himself from weeping.
He observed, he said, that everybody else appeared
to feel just as he did.
Such an awe, such a solemnity, such a
state of things he had never had any
conception of before.
He hastened through with his business and returned
to Utica, but, as he said, never to
speak lightly of the work at Rome again.
A few weeks later at Utica he was
hopefully converted, the circumstances of which, he says,
I will relate in a later place.
In closing, in closing, I just would like
to say this.
In an atmosphere where God is, there is
no tolerance for sin.
God will bring great conviction before he sends
judgment.
God is not just the loving God, he's
also the living God.
And I'm reminded of the passage in Hebrews.
It is a fearful thing to fall into
the hands of the living God.
What would it be to fall into the
hands of the one who is able, after
destroying the body, to cast the eternal soul
into incomprehensible everlasting torments?
Because of the fear of the Lord, Scripture
says, men depart from evil.
Do we fear him?
Or do we have an ungodly humanism?
Are we willing to get about our lives
in such a way that God could actually
show up, as it were?
When the priest was going into the Holy
of Holies, God gave the strictest instruction about
it.
How he was to do it, even to
the very details of the clothing.
How much more ought we to go into
our lives and set them in order in
accordance with God's word so that God once
again can move among us?
Or will we be like Israel, who would
rather just veil the glory because the people
prefer to, as the Scripture said, eat and
drink and rise up to play?
Will we hear his voice?
Or will we harden our hearts as in
the day of provocation?
We need the greatest outpouring of the Holy
Ghost in the history of the church, I
believe.
Who will fear him?
Who will fear him and reverence him enough
that he will once again make his affidavit,
his abode, among us?
Heavenly Father, Lord, I just want to close
tonight.
Lord, your word said, because of the fear
of the Lord, men depart from evil.
The fear of the Lord is the beginning
of wisdom.
Lord, it is rightly so that we preach
about your love, about your grace, but you're
not just the loving God, you're the living
God.
And God forbid that we would ever fall
into your hands of judgment.
Lord, I pray that you would put it
upon our hearts to go through and search
out our lives, God, to get rid of
the things, Lord, from our lives that are
hindering revival.
Lord, revival begins with me.
It don't begin with my neighbor.
It begins in my heart, in my life.
Turn the searchlight of your Holy Spirit on.
Search me out, O God, if there be
any unclean thing in me or in those,
God, that would hear this message.
Lord, we pray tonight, God, for an outpouring
of your spirit and conviction.
Lord, I pray that churches will begin to
get themselves to a place where you can
pour out your glory.
Because of the truth, God, when you are
present, you will not tolerate sin.
Judgment will be swift.
And Father, God, I pray for Sermon Index
just now and for those that are listening
to this message.
Lord, I pray that somehow someone would be
touched by this word tonight.
God, I pray that you would reach out
and you would challenge us, God, to walk
upright before you, to spend that time in
prayer.
God, we would just ask that you would
also protect as we pray.
God, Sermon Index, Lord, and the servers and
the files, God bless, I pray, Brother Greg
and those who attend the forum, the moderators.
Lord, I pray, God, that you would just
anoint us all, Lord, with your spirit and
power and great grace.
We ask these favors in Christ's name.
Amen.