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About the Book
"Secret Power" by D.L. Moody explores the concept of the Holy Spirit as a source of power and guidance in the Christian faith. The book discusses the role of the Holy Spirit in the believer's life and offers insights on how to cultivate a deeper relationship with God through the Holy Spirit. Moody emphasizes the importance of relying on the Holy Spirit for strength, wisdom, and spiritual growth.
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
Fatherhood for Imperfect Dads
My wife and I raised perfect children. By the time they were ten years old, they had memorized the New Testament. They came each morning to the family breakfast table with cheerful songs on their tongues, the melodies caressing their freshly brushed teeth. At an early age, they volunteered to launder their own clothes and never once complained about their studies. They never used a whiny tone of voice with their mother, and they affectionately call me âdearest fatherâ to this very day. I canât recall correcting them. They were thrilled to share their belongings with each other. We never heard a mumbling word. Yeah, right. There are no perfect children. Vicki and I didnât raise any, and my parents didnât raise any either. Neither did yours. We live on a fallen and cursed planet. You are a sinner, and your children are too. They not only fall short of the glory of God, but they fall short of the expectations of their inglorious dads. âDonât give up on fatherhood just because perfection seems continually out of reach.â But all is not lost. Fathers, donât give up on fatherhood just because perfection seems continually out of reach. God extends more than enough grace to compensate for our shortcomings as dads. Children of defective parents â your children â can end up relishing God. When Dreams Hit Reality Expectations breed strong emotions, and unmet expectations even stronger ones. When our expectations collide with real life, the mismatch can erupt in a whole range of emotions â from dismay to sorrow to fuming anger. Mostly fuming anger. Thatâs what happens when people do what you donât expect them to, or donât do what you do expect them to. Desires launch assumptions, which are then fueled by narratives we have subtly adopted. Such as: Unlike other children, my children will never make a big mess or be fussy in church. I will lose standing in the community if my kids donât go to college. My children will replicate only my good traits and not my flaws and sinful attitudes. My kids will be spiritually advanced for their age. Acting wisely and avoiding emotional hijacks requires winning the crucial battle â an unceasingly ongoing one â to align your expectations with reality. Those children you love dearly will sin dreadfully. As you have. Observe the one reality you cannot avoid in your parenting: you and your sinful nature. Your children not only live with your sin â they inherit it. âThose children you love dearly will sin dreadfully. As you have.â But parenting is not to be dreaded. To dread parenting exposes a misplaced love that you perceive to be in danger â like a love for your reputation if your kids mess up, or a love for your schedule if your kids make a mess when youâre already running late. The steadfast love of God is never in danger, and if your aim in parenting is to draw attention to his love, you have nothing to dread on that score. Safe Expectations Some expectations, however, will certainly come to pass. You can plan on the fact that your parenting will never go exactly according to your plan. Your parenting plan isnât perfectly wise, because you are not perfectly wise. My wife has a placard that says, âMan plans. God laughs.â In contrast to our plans, Godâs plan for your parenting is perfectly wise. You are not sovereign. He is. And in his perfection, he assigned your children their father â namely, you. Parenting is nevertheless a humbling experience. Your parenting wonât be flawless any more than your marriage has been without disappointments. You will face regret â regret that you werenât a better parent, that you passed on your imperfections to your children, that you displayed anger at them for being like you, that you didnât know as much as you had hoped you would. My kids are now middle-aged themselves, all of them parenting their own unique God-given brood. And one of the disappointments I didnât expect early on is that they havenât passed along to their own children some of the lessons I insisted on giving to them. For example, when my children were still living at home, I led family discussions about everything from Charles Finneyâs approach to confessing sin, to how eye traps work (seductive clothing), to the value of singing together. As a grandparent, I donât hear those lessons emphasized in the same ways in their homes. Meanwhile, they love their children deeply, and point them to Jesus in other ways I never did. So thereâs another side to this expectation coin. God provides occasions when your children exceed your expectations, times when you wish you were like them. Some of our children treat every day as a new day, forgiving yesterdayâs offenses. Some are generous to a fault. Some seem impervious to peer pressure. In a crucial sense, your children grow you. That is, they are God-sent instruments for your growth in maturity, your sanctification, your alignment with Godâs plan for your Christlikeness. Questions for Fathers With some safe expectations in place, what steps might dads take to remove some of the imperfections from their imperfect parenting? Fathers who rightly relate to God are on firm footing for rightly relating to their children. So how is your own relationship with your heavenly Father? Do you âseek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness,â trusting that âall these things will be added to youâ (Matthew 6:33)? Would people who know you best say that you truly want what God wants for your children? Would you say it about yourself? Would God say it about you? How do you parent today in relation to how you were parented? Are you replicating the errors of your own mom or dad? Are you motivated to avoid repeating the same errors? Once grace enables you to become aware of their errors, that same grace can enable you to break from those errors in your own parenting. Generational sins can be broken: âNow suppose this man fathers a son who sees all the sins that his father has done; he sees, and does not do likewiseâ (Ezekiel 18:14). Ask God to help you seek his kingdom first in your family, especially in those places where you are tempted to repeat the errors of the past. Humble Fatherhood Perhaps most of all, however, we dads need humility. Even if your way of raising children is a good way, beware of concluding your way is the best way, much less the only way. In other words, remain teachable. One day it dawned on me that my small children could teach me a few lessons about my parenting. That was God whispering to me through my children. Fathers, your offspring wonât admire everything about you. Theyâll learn stuff you didnât teach them. Theyâll be better than you at some skills and more developed in certain character qualities. Your personal flaws will exert lingering influence on them. Pray for mercy. They may or may not follow your preferred career for them. They will not develop uniformly without setbacks, nor be identical to their siblings. Recognize individuality. Even though you work at it â and you are wise to do so â you will not always have your wifeâs enthusiastic support in every aspect of parenting, from bedtimes to how much should be spent on gifts. Be gentle. Be humble. Seek God for more grace. Although not all of your expectations will be fulfilled in fathering, you can continue to grow and step into Godâs great privilege of being their dad. Article by Sam Crabtree