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About the Book
"Healing The Sick" by T L Osborn is a comprehensive guide on how to unleash the healing power of God in individuals' lives. The book provides practical steps and insights on how to pray for and receive healing, emphasizing the importance of faith and believing in the power of God. Osborn shares personal stories and examples of individuals who have experienced miraculous healings, encouraging readers to trust in God's ability to heal and restore. Overall, the book serves as a resource for those seeking to understand and experience divine healing in their lives.
Charles Finney
Childhood and Teen years
Charles Grandison Finney was born the year after Wesley died on 29th August, 1792 in Warren, Connecticut. In 1794 his family moved to New York state, eventually settling at Henderson, near Lake Ontario. Although he received only a brief formal education he decided to study law and joined the practice of a local lawyer, Benjamin Wright. He was also very musical, played the cello and directed the choir at the local Presbyterian Church pastured by Rev. George Gale.
His conversion
His conversion on October 10th 1821 reads like something out of the book of Acts. Smitten with conviction from Bible reading he decided to âsettle the question of my soulâs salvation at once, that if it were possible, I would make my peace with God.â (Autobiography)
This conviction increased to an unbearable level over the next couple of days and came to an head when he was suddenly confronted with an âinward voice.â He was inwardly questioned about his spiritual condition and finally received revelation about the finished work of Christ and his own need to give up his sins and submit to Christâs righteousness.
As he sought God in a nearby wood he was overwhelmed with an acute sense of his own wickedness and pride but finally submitted his life to Christ. Back at work that afternoon he was filled with a profound sense of tenderness, sweetness and peace. When work was over and he bade his employer goodnight, he then experienced a mighty baptism in the Holy Spirit, which was recorded as vividly as the day he experienced it, though it was penned some fifty years later.
The next morning Finney announced to a customer that he was leaving his law studies to become a preacher of the Gospel.
Charles Finney licensed to preach
He was licensed to preach in 1823 and ordained as an evangelist in 1824. His penetrating preaching was quite different from many local ministers and included an obvious attempt to break away from the traditional and, as he saw it, dead, orthodox Calvinism. He married to Lydia Andrews in October 1824 and was also joined by Daniel Nash (1774-1831), known popularly as âFather Nash.â Undoubtedly Nashâs special ministry of prayer played a great part in Finneyâs growing success as an evangelist.
Things really took off when he preached in his old church, where Rev. Gale still ministered. Numerous converts and critics followed! Similar results were experienced in nearby towns of Rome and Utica. Soon newspapers were reporting his campaigns and he began drawing large crowds with dramatic responses.
Soon he was preaching in the largest cities of the north with phenomenal results. Campaign after campaign secured thousands of converts.
The high point of Finneyâs revival career was reached at Rochester, New York, during his 1830-1 meetings. Shopkeepers closed their businesses and the whole city seemed to centre on the revivalist. Responding to his irresistible logic and passionate arguments many of his converts were lawyers, merchants and those from a higher income and professional status.
His Preaching
Finney openly preached a modified Calvinism, influenced with his own theology of conversion and used what were perceived to be ârevivalistic techniques.â
These âmeansâ included the use of the anxious bench (a special place for those under conviction), protracted meetings, women allowed to pray in mixed meetings, publicly naming those present resisting God in meetings and the hurried admission of new converts into church membership. Opponents viewed his preaching of the law as âscare tacticsâ and his persuasive appeals for sinners to come to Christ for salvation were seen as over-emphasising the responsibility of men and ignoring the sovereignty of God.
His theology and practise soon became known as the âNew Measuresâ and attracted many opponents from the Old School Presbyterians led by Asahel Nettleton (himself no stranger to true revival and , the revivalistic Congregationalists headed by Lyman Beecher.
Pastor at Chatham Street Chapel
Finney accepted an appointment as pastor of Chatham Street Chapel in New York City in 1832 where he remained until 1837. It was during this time that he delivered a series of sermons published in 1835 as âLectures on Revivals of Religion.â Here he clearly stated his views regarding revivals being products of the correct use of human means. Such was the controversy that he left the Presbyterian denomination and joined the Congregationalists in 1836.
Oberlin College
The next year he became professor of theology at Oberlin College (Ohio) where he taught until his death. He was President here from 1851 until 1866, but still continued regular revival meetings in urban settings (twice in England, 1848, 1851) until 1860. During his stay at Oberlin he produced his, Lectures to Professing Christians (1836), Sermons on Important Subjects (1839) and his famous Memoirs.
The Father of Modern Revivalism
There is no doubt that Charles Grandison Finney well-deserves the title âThe Father of Modern Revivalism.â He was an evangelistic pioneer whose model was followed by a long line of revivalists from D. L. Moody to Billy Graham. His writing have made a massive impact on the entire evangelical world and particularly the âLectures on Revivalsâ which has, arguably, ignited more fires of revival than any other single piece literature in evangelical history.
This âPrince of Revivalistsâ passed away peacefully at Oberlin on Sunday, 16th August, 1875 aged almost 83 years.
Bibliography: I Will Pour Out My Spirit, R. E. Davies, 1997; Ed: A. Scott Moreau, Baker Evangelical Dictionary of World Missions, 2000; Dictionary of Evangelical Biography 1730-1860, Vol. 1, 1995.
Tony Cauchi
Can Cancer Be Godâs Servant
In March, my beloved wife, Nanci, lost her four-year battle with colon cancer. All 54 years Iâve known her, Nanci loved Jesus. But from a front-row seat, I watched a wonderful â and supernatural â change in those last four years. In 2019, Nanci wrote to a friend and fellow cancer sufferer, The cancer battle has been tough. However, my time with the Ancient of Days (one of my favorite names for God) has been epic! He has met me in ways I never knew were possible. I have experienced  His sovereignty, mercy, and steadfast love in tangible ways. I now trust Him at a level I never knew I could. I saw Nanci meditate on Scripture daily, read great books about God, and journal â writing out verses, powerful quotations from Spurgeon and many others, and personal reflections. One unforgettable morning, after meditating on Psalm 119:91, âAll things are your servants,â she shared with me what sheâd just written: My cancer is Godâs servant in my life. He is using it in ways He has revealed to me and in many more I have yet to understand. I can rest knowing my cancer is under the control of a sovereign God who is  good and does  good. Brokenhearted and Thankful Nine months later, at Nanciâs request and on short notice, our daughters and their families gathered to hear her speak final words of overflowing love for us and unswerving trust in her sovereign King. As one of our grandsons sat beside her, listening to her struggling to speak and to me reading powerful words from her journals, he said, âGrams, if you can trust God in this, I know I can trust Him in whatever Iâll go through.â Another grandson told her, âI will never forget what you said to us today.â Exactly one week later, I held her hand and watched her take her last breath in this world under the curse. Every day during those four years, I witnessed Godâs sanctifying and happy-making work in my wife: âWe rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope . . . because Godâs love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spiritâ (Romans 5:3â5). Nanci and I â and thousands worldwide â prayed daily for her healing. Godâs final answer was to rescue her from suffering and bring her into his presence where itâs âbetter by farâ (Philippians 1:23). Through her afflictions, he achieved in her an eternal weight of glory that far outweighs them all (2 Corinthians 4:17). She praised Jesus for it, and I will forever do the same, though I miss her immensely. Why God Permits What He Does When our ministry posted Nanciâs words, âMy cancer is Godâs servant,â someone responded, âWHAT? God does NOT give people cancer. Jesus bore our sicknesses and carried our pains on the cross.â âEverything God does flows from his wisdom and ultimately serves both his holiness and love.â That reader is not alone in trying to distance God from suffering. But by saying sickness comes only from Satan and the fall, not from God, we disconnect him from our suffering and his deeper purposes. God is sovereign. He never permits or uses evil arbitrarily; everything he does flows from his wisdom and ultimately serves both his holiness and love. Joni Eareckson Tada often shares the words of her friend Steve Estes: âGod permits what he hates to accomplish what he loves.â Godâs âpermittingâ something is far stronger than it may sound. After all, whatever God permits actually happens; what he doesnât permit doesnât happen. In the final chapter of Job, God reveals that Jobâs family and friends âshowed him sympathy and comforted him for all the evil that the Lord had brought upon himâ (Job 42:11). The author told us from the beginning that Jobâs troubles were Satanâs idea and actions. Yet the inspired wording indicates Satanâs efforts were, indirectly by sovereign permission, Godâs own doing. Many find this truth disturbing, but properly understood, it should be comforting. What should be profoundly disturbing is the notion that God stands by passively while Satan, evildoers, diseases, and random accidents ruin the lives of his beloved children. Charles Spurgeon suffered terribly from depression, gout, rheumatism, neuritis, and a burning kidney inflammation. Yet he said, âIt would be a very sharp and trying experience for me to think that I have an affliction which God never sent me . . . that my trials were never measured out by him, nor sent to me by his arrangement of their weight and quantity.â Mercy Outstrips Hardship Nanci and I experienced many glimpses of Godâs sovereign purposes for years before her cancer diagnosis. We saw that my becoming an insulin-dependent diabetic 35 years ago was Godâs plan to increase my dependence on him. And we saw, 30 years ago, that a lawsuit by an abortion clinic for $8.2 million was his way of moving me from pastoring a church we loved into a ministry that reaches further than we ever imagined. Godâs hands were not tied by my genetic propensity for type-1 diabetes (the result of the curse), or by the vengeance of child-killers (the result of human sin and demonic strategy). He didnât merely âmake the best of bad situations.â He took bad situations and used them for his glory and our highest good. His sovereign grace far outstripped our hardships. If this were not true, anyone facing a terminal illness would have to believe they experienced bad luck, and that God is either not as powerful or not as loving as he claims to be. Parents who have lost a child would have to believe the death was a meaningless accident, and that it wouldnât have happened if only the child hadnât been at that place at that time, or if that man hadnât been driving drunk, or if a thousand other circumstances had been different. If onlys  and what ifs  can rule our lives and drive us crazy. Instead, embracing Godâs higher purposes â even when invisible to us in painful and tragic events â affirms Godâs greatness. This is not fatalism. It is trust in the character and promises of our faithful, all-wise God. My friend David OâBrien told me, with his slurred and laboring voice, that God used cerebral palsy to deepen his dependence on Christ. Was he better off? He lived convinced that his 81 years of suffering were no cosmic accident or satanic victory, but a severe mercy from the good hand of almighty God. Reasons Outside Our Sight Lines By Godâs grace, Nanci fixed her attention on his attributes. Only eight months into her cancer journey, she wrote, I honestly would not trade this cancer experience to go back to where I was. These last months have been used by God to propel me into a deeper understanding and experience of his sovereignty, wisdom, steadfast love, mercy, grace, faithfulness, immanency, trustworthiness, and omnipotence. Psalm 119:71 says, âIt was good for me that I was afflicted, that I might learn your statutes.â If affliction was good for the psalmist, then withholding that affliction would have meant withholding good. The universe is first and foremost about the purposes, plans, and glory of God. God sees eternal purposes and plans and knows ultimate good in ways we cannot. Our sovereign God weaves millions of details into our lives. He may have one big reason, or a thousand little ones, for bringing a certain person or success or failure or disease or accident into our lives. His reasons often fall outside our present lines of sight. If God uses cancer or a car accident to conform us to himself, then regardless of the human, demonic, or natural forces involved, he will be glorified. âGod is at work behind the scenes, and one day we will understand our sufferingâs hidden purposes.â âO great and mighty God, whose name is the Lord of hosts, great in counsel and mighty in deedâ (Jeremiah 32:18â19). God is  at work behind the scenes, and one day we will  understand our sufferingâs hidden purposes. Will You See What She Saw? Without a doubt, as I saw so clearly even when my tears overflowed, cancer served Godâs purposes in Nanciâs life. I said at her service, âThe most conspicuous thing about Nanci in her cancer years was her wonderfully big view of God, which she fed from Scripture and great books. The more she contemplated Godâs love and grace and sovereignty, the more her trust in him grew.â So I said to our gathered family, friends, and church members â many of them facing their own painful trials â what I sensed God saying to me: âThat huge, beautiful, and transforming view of God is yours for the taking. So why not spend the rest of your life pursuing it?â
