Reflections on God … Man … Life
Usually on Sundays, I excerpt something from Charles Finney, who, I believe, was one of the clearest thinkers in church history when it comes to grasping the need for conviction of sin and repentance as conditions for salvation. In the spirit of Finney, I’d like to offer some thoughts today that I hope may clarify where I’m coming from in my understanding of sin, repentance, and the essence of salvation. I’ll do my best to make these comments succinct. Some… Read more »
I’ve often remarked how I wish I didn’t have to come across as someone who’s always pointing out the sins and errors in the world, especially that part of the world connected with government. It can get old, and it’s easy to tire of being the Jeremiah. Yet, as I was reading some of Charles Finney’s Revival Lectures, I came across something quite pertinent to my situation, and it gave me a measure of encouragement: If you have the Spirit… Read more »
We’re very good at wanting other people to know about their sins, but not quite as enthusiastic about hearing of our own. Charles Finney nails it in his Revival Lectures: Perhaps you have resisted the Spirit of God. Perhaps you are in the habit of resisting the Spirit. You resist conviction. In preaching, when something has been said that reached your case, your heart has risen up against it. Many are willing to hear plain and searching preaching, so long… Read more »
For many, their first encounter with C. S. Lewis’s marvelous works is The Screwtape Letters. This witty little book, which consists of letters from a superior devil, Screwtape, to a junior devil, Wormwood, continues to be a bestseller. Why? I think it’s because it captures so well the essence of the sinful heart as it displays not only Screwtape’s advice on how to lead a person into hell, but also the manner in which the inhabitants of hell treat one… Read more »
Modern man doesn’t like to talk much about hell, unless it’s in some fanciful movie creation where one doesn’t have to worry about its reality. The reason we avoid thinking about the possibility of hell can be traced back to our similar reluctance to consider seriously our sinfulness. And what bothers us the most, I believe, about the idea of sin is that we know the root of it is our self-centeredness. We like being self-focused; we feel justified in… Read more »
Charles Finney spends quite a bit of time in his autobiography pointing out the differences between him and other ministers of the Gospel in the manner in which they communicate the message. He says he never really preaches; he just talks to the people. Other ministers, trained as they were at the colleges of the nineteenth century, would always “preach,” but never really connect with the people to whom they were preaching. Finney also relates his impressions of how ministers… Read more »
Is there any such thing as an inconsequential sin? A sin that doesn’t really matter all that much? Charles Finney didn’t think so, and here’s his rationale in his Revival Lectures: There are multitudes of such things by which the Spirit of God is grieved. People call them “little” sins, but God will not call them little. I was struck with this thought when I saw a little notice in The Evangelist. The publishers stated that they had many thousands… Read more »