Aug. 22, 2024

Charles Finney Challenge Pt 1

Charles Finney Challenge Pt 1

The first review in our Charles Finney challenge

Spreaker podcast player badge
Apple Podcasts podcast player badge
Spotify podcast player badge
PocketCasts podcast player badge
Amazon Music podcast player badge
Overcast podcast player badge
Audible podcast player badge
Castro podcast player badge
iHeartRadio podcast player badge
Castbox podcast player badge
Podchaser podcast player badge
TuneIn podcast player badge
Deezer podcast player badge
Pandora podcast player badge
RadioPublic podcast player badge
Podcast Addict podcast player badge
RSS Feed podcast player badge
YouTube podcast player badge
Fountain podcast player badge
PlayerFM podcast player badge
Goodpods podcast player badge
Podverse podcast player badge
Podyssey podcast player badge
Breaker podcast player badge
Podurama podcast player badge
Audacy podcast player badge
JioSaavn podcast player badge
Spreaker podcast player icon Apple Podcasts podcast player icon Spotify podcast player icon PocketCasts podcast player icon Amazon Music podcast player icon Overcast podcast player icon Audible podcast player icon Castro podcast player icon iHeartRadio podcast player icon Castbox podcast player icon Podchaser podcast player icon TuneIn podcast player icon Deezer podcast player icon Pandora podcast player icon RadioPublic podcast player icon Podcast Addict podcast player icon RSS Feed podcast player icon YouTube podcast player icon Fountain podcast player icon PlayerFM podcast player icon Goodpods podcast player icon Podverse podcast player icon Podyssey podcast player icon Breaker podcast player icon Podurama podcast player icon Audacy podcast player icon JioSaavn podcast player icon

The first review in our Charles Finney challenge

WEBVTT

1
00:00:02.240 --> 00:00:05.040
Looking at our world from a theological perspective.

2
00:00:05.440 --> 00:00:09.839
This is the Theology Central podcast making Theology Central.

3
00:00:11.880 --> 00:00:16.160
Good afternoon, everyone. It is Thursday, August the twenty second,

4
00:00:16.239 --> 00:00:19.839
twenty twenty four. It is currently two thirty six pm

5
00:00:19.920 --> 00:00:23.719
Central Time, and I am coming to you live from

6
00:00:23.800 --> 00:00:29.519
the Theology Central Studio located right here in Abilene, Texas.

7
00:00:30.000 --> 00:00:32.840
And all I can say right now is, if you

8
00:00:33.200 --> 00:00:37.159
have ever thought about coming to Abilene, Texas, just perish

9
00:00:37.280 --> 00:00:39.479
the thought right now. Get rid of that thought. If

10
00:00:39.520 --> 00:00:43.000
you're driving a car right now and you're headed towards Abilene, Texas,

11
00:00:43.280 --> 00:00:48.520
turn the car around. Save yourselves. Forget about us. Just

12
00:00:48.640 --> 00:00:52.520
save yourselves. You do not want to come to Abilene, Texas.

13
00:00:52.920 --> 00:00:56.240
Yesterday we broke a record. We had one hundred and

14
00:00:56.359 --> 00:00:59.320
thirteen degrees and now they're warning us it's going to

15
00:00:59.320 --> 00:01:01.880
be about one hundred in twelve, maybe within the next

16
00:01:01.920 --> 00:01:04.920
hour or so. We have, like you know, all kinds

17
00:01:04.959 --> 00:01:09.519
of weather heat warnings and advisories. Basically, don't go outside

18
00:01:09.599 --> 00:01:13.280
or you'll, you know, you will burst into flames. It

19
00:01:13.359 --> 00:01:17.079
is hot outside. And not only is it hot outside,

20
00:01:17.719 --> 00:01:22.359
we're here at the Theology Central Studio, the central cooling

21
00:01:22.439 --> 00:01:27.000
unit well started having some problems yesterday. We still need

22
00:01:27.000 --> 00:01:28.719
to get someone out to kind of, do you know,

23
00:01:28.840 --> 00:01:30.879
just kind of a maintenance check and make sure everything

24
00:01:30.959 --> 00:01:34.359
is working correctly. It's hard to know is there a

25
00:01:34.400 --> 00:01:37.400
real problem or things were just cutting off because things

26
00:01:37.400 --> 00:01:40.799
were overheating because it was one hundred and thirteen degrees outside.

27
00:01:41.120 --> 00:01:43.319
Well at this point, I think it's about one eight,

28
00:01:43.400 --> 00:01:45.719
one o eight, one oh nine right now, maybe one ten,

29
00:01:47.280 --> 00:01:49.920
and I'm not I don't. I think things are still

30
00:01:49.959 --> 00:01:54.599
working okay. But you know, either way, even with the

31
00:01:54.640 --> 00:01:58.599
central air unit on up here in the studio itself

32
00:01:58.760 --> 00:02:01.239
right here in the studio, so I have to rely

33
00:02:01.359 --> 00:02:04.000
mainly on a window unit behind me. And I can't

34
00:02:04.079 --> 00:02:07.000
keep the window unit on when I'm broadcasting, which means

35
00:02:07.000 --> 00:02:09.120
as soon as I turn that off, it gets hot

36
00:02:09.159 --> 00:02:12.599
here in the studio. So I have limited amount of time.

37
00:02:13.800 --> 00:02:16.199
And I was sitting here debating, do you know what,

38
00:02:16.400 --> 00:02:18.800
just skip broadcasting? I mean, you know, nobody's going to

39
00:02:18.840 --> 00:02:22.360
care if you don't broadcast, and I understand that, but

40
00:02:22.479 --> 00:02:25.759
sometimes I want to broadcast, right, So I was like, well,

41
00:02:25.759 --> 00:02:27.400
what do I do? Well, I have the Sword of

42
00:02:27.439 --> 00:02:29.280
the Lord newspaper right here in front of me, right,

43
00:02:29.439 --> 00:02:31.680
we got to finish this small section on the Holy

44
00:02:31.719 --> 00:02:35.560
Spirit in revival probably takes me fifteen twenty minutes. But

45
00:02:35.639 --> 00:02:39.400
I'm like, well, we've kind of taken a slight detour, right,

46
00:02:40.199 --> 00:02:42.800
so maybe we should follow the detour. But then I

47
00:02:42.840 --> 00:02:45.479
was like, well, or maybe I just forget everything about revival,

48
00:02:45.520 --> 00:02:49.560
forget everything about the detour, and I have here in

49
00:02:49.599 --> 00:02:52.520
front of me. This was at the church for a

50
00:02:52.560 --> 00:02:54.919
long time in the library. I don't know why I

51
00:02:55.000 --> 00:02:56.919
ended up bringing it here, but I brought it here,

52
00:02:56.960 --> 00:03:00.560
and it's the kjav Study Bible, right, and I've had

53
00:03:00.599 --> 00:03:03.000
it for a long time. And I was like, and

54
00:03:03.120 --> 00:03:05.199
I saw it laying here, and I'm like, why did

55
00:03:05.199 --> 00:03:07.560
I bring this to the studio. I don't know. So

56
00:03:07.639 --> 00:03:10.919
I opened it up. There was a pencil marking a

57
00:03:10.919 --> 00:03:13.039
certain page, and I opened it up and it was

58
00:03:13.840 --> 00:03:18.599
how to Read and Study the Bible. How to read

59
00:03:18.639 --> 00:03:22.680
and Study the Bible. And I'm like, ooh, this looks interesting.

60
00:03:24.080 --> 00:03:27.240
I would love to walk through this for like its

61
00:03:27.280 --> 00:03:30.680
own special series. But what I want to do is

62
00:03:30.719 --> 00:03:33.759
I want to approach the series, not like, hey, here's

63
00:03:33.800 --> 00:03:35.599
how to read and study the Bible. I know, I

64
00:03:35.639 --> 00:03:39.520
want to approach the series. Here is how a Bible

65
00:03:39.680 --> 00:03:44.080
publisher thinks that, you know, by they thought it was

66
00:03:44.120 --> 00:03:46.719
important to put this article inside the front of their

67
00:03:46.759 --> 00:03:49.199
Bible on how to read and study the Bible. So

68
00:03:49.560 --> 00:03:52.159
if you were if you just if we just take

69
00:03:52.360 --> 00:03:56.319
their advice, how well off would we be? Would we

70
00:03:56.400 --> 00:03:58.520
really know how to read and study the Bible if

71
00:03:58.560 --> 00:04:00.919
we just took their advice? Like I want to just

72
00:04:01.120 --> 00:04:03.479
use Hey, this is what they say we need to

73
00:04:03.479 --> 00:04:05.960
do to learn how to read and study. What do

74
00:04:06.039 --> 00:04:08.280
we actually get so we may walk through it? I

75
00:04:08.280 --> 00:04:11.719
think it will be fun. The first sentence here, I

76
00:04:11.759 --> 00:04:13.960
already have a problem with the first sentence because they

77
00:04:13.960 --> 00:04:17.639
state something that's not completely accurate. Sorry, I'm hitting the microphone.

78
00:04:17.759 --> 00:04:20.279
So I thought about doing that, but again, that's going

79
00:04:20.319 --> 00:04:22.079
to turn into a series. I'm like, I don't really

80
00:04:22.079 --> 00:04:23.680
want to start a series when you know it's one

81
00:04:23.720 --> 00:04:27.199
hundred and twelve degrees outside, So I'm going to set

82
00:04:27.240 --> 00:04:29.439
that down. And I went back to the sord of

83
00:04:29.439 --> 00:04:31.959
the Lord Paper and I'm like, well, what we did

84
00:04:32.040 --> 00:04:34.879
earlier today or what not? Even the day before? I

85
00:04:34.879 --> 00:04:39.240
think maybe the day before as we were talking about

86
00:04:39.319 --> 00:04:42.759
revival and talking about this article, in the sort of

87
00:04:42.800 --> 00:04:46.120
the Lord newspaper. There was a message. There was a

88
00:04:46.120 --> 00:04:49.240
broadcast that's on the sermon's two point oh app on

89
00:04:49.399 --> 00:04:53.040
basically Charles Finnie and how he has shaped America, how

90
00:04:53.079 --> 00:04:56.680
he's shaped American evangelicalism. And I told everyone to go

91
00:04:56.720 --> 00:04:58.839
listen to that, and we did a partial review of that.

92
00:04:59.480 --> 00:05:02.639
Then I came back today because in their review and

93
00:05:02.959 --> 00:05:05.560
their discussion of Charles Finnie, they began their discussion by

94
00:05:05.560 --> 00:05:08.439
saying Charles Finnie is in Hell, and initially I had

95
00:05:08.480 --> 00:05:11.079
some pushback. So I came back today to say, well,

96
00:05:11.800 --> 00:05:19.279
Charles Finnie denied substitutionary atonement, he denied penal substitution. He

97
00:05:19.040 --> 00:05:21.839
he was not Orthodox Christian. He wasn't even a Christian

98
00:05:21.839 --> 00:05:24.720
in any way, shape or form. So if Charles Finnie

99
00:05:24.839 --> 00:05:28.160
wasn't even a Christian, then wired churches today still being

100
00:05:28.279 --> 00:05:31.600
influenced and using his techniques, and they hold to a

101
00:05:31.600 --> 00:05:35.120
philosophy of revival that goes to Fennie, not to scripture,

102
00:05:35.240 --> 00:05:37.480
even though they try to use scripture to justify it.

103
00:05:37.560 --> 00:05:40.279
And they're taking their philosophy on revival from someone who

104
00:05:40.319 --> 00:05:44.240
wasn't even a Christian. Okay, that's problematic. So remember I

105
00:05:44.279 --> 00:05:48.079
gave everyone a challenge for the sermons two point oh

106
00:05:48.240 --> 00:05:52.560
app sermon challenge for Thursday, Friday, Saturday and at least

107
00:05:52.600 --> 00:05:55.399
till Sunday. You're supposed to grab the sermon's two point

108
00:05:55.439 --> 00:05:58.680
oh app look up random sermons on Charles Fennie and

109
00:05:58.720 --> 00:06:03.279
I said, on your you know, get set Are you ready? Go? Okay?

110
00:06:03.439 --> 00:06:06.040
I know that's not exactly how you say power. You

111
00:06:06.079 --> 00:06:09.480
get the point right, go? So then I was like, okay,

112
00:06:09.160 --> 00:06:12.160
I've done it. Everyway's good to go. I'll move on.

113
00:06:13.240 --> 00:06:17.240
All right, right, I'll move on. How actually do you

114
00:06:17.319 --> 00:06:20.160
say that? On your mark? Get set go? That's how

115
00:06:20.199 --> 00:06:22.759
you say it, right? Obviously I didn't run track. Okay,

116
00:06:23.439 --> 00:06:26.040
on your mark, get set go. Isn't that the correct way?

117
00:06:26.199 --> 00:06:28.279
It better be the correct way. Okay. If it's not

118
00:06:28.360 --> 00:06:30.639
the correct way, do not correct me. Just let me

119
00:06:30.759 --> 00:06:34.240
live and being ignorant. Okay. But the point is I

120
00:06:34.360 --> 00:06:36.439
was like go, And then I was like, well, you know,

121
00:06:36.639 --> 00:06:39.000
it's gonna be like one hundred and thirteen degrees here.

122
00:06:39.079 --> 00:06:40.720
I don't know if I'm gonna be able to broadcast.

123
00:06:40.759 --> 00:06:42.120
I don't know if the AC is going to work

124
00:06:42.199 --> 00:06:43.839
or not work. I don't know what I'm gonna do.

125
00:06:44.680 --> 00:06:47.079
So then I was like, but they're like, well, you know,

126
00:06:47.759 --> 00:06:49.800
if I told everyone to do this, I like to

127
00:06:49.800 --> 00:06:53.959
demonstrate that I'm participating, right, So I'm like, well, let

128
00:06:54.000 --> 00:06:56.639
me grab the sermon's two point oh app, I'll do

129
00:06:56.680 --> 00:06:59.279
a search and guess where I found what I ended

130
00:06:59.319 --> 00:07:03.560
up with. I ended up at a message called Revivalism

131
00:07:04.199 --> 00:07:09.120
and Charles Finnie. Revivalism and Charles Finnie. Now that's perfect,

132
00:07:09.240 --> 00:07:12.120
right because we have now the series that we're doing

133
00:07:12.120 --> 00:07:14.199
on revival based off this article in the Sword of

134
00:07:14.240 --> 00:07:18.839
the Lord. All right, hey, that's good. So it's connects

135
00:07:18.879 --> 00:07:21.480
to that. It deals with Charles Finny. That connects with

136
00:07:21.519 --> 00:07:24.480
our kind of our Charles Finny challenge. For the next

137
00:07:24.480 --> 00:07:27.639
couple of days, you're looking up random sermons on Charles Finnie. Okay, great,

138
00:07:27.920 --> 00:07:30.879
it allows me to participate. Great. This one is a

139
00:07:30.959 --> 00:07:35.759
relatively popular message. It has eighty downloads. I mean that's

140
00:07:35.879 --> 00:07:40.680
pretty good, right. I'm like, okay, well it was published

141
00:07:40.720 --> 00:07:44.439
on July the nineteenth, twenty fifteen. Okay, well, I mean

142
00:07:44.720 --> 00:07:47.399
maybe that's not super popular, but maybe we can increase

143
00:07:47.399 --> 00:07:49.079
the numbers to it, right, maybe we can get it

144
00:07:49.120 --> 00:07:53.240
over one hundred. Right, So Revivalism and Charles Finnie from

145
00:07:53.360 --> 00:07:59.120
Calvary Baptist Church. Revivalism and Charles Finny from Calvary Baptist Church,

146
00:07:59.120 --> 00:08:02.000
please go download it, have it saved in your library

147
00:08:02.240 --> 00:08:04.560
so that you can listen to it whenever you can, right,

148
00:08:04.759 --> 00:08:07.439
or you can continue looking for other sermons. So I'm like,

149
00:08:07.480 --> 00:08:11.680
you know what, let's now, Typically when I do a review, right,

150
00:08:11.800 --> 00:08:14.519
I mean this, the duration of this is over an hour.

151
00:08:14.600 --> 00:08:16.199
So if we do a full review on this, you

152
00:08:16.240 --> 00:08:19.920
know what that means, right, this would be five, maybe

153
00:08:20.120 --> 00:08:23.959
six hours of broadcasting. So I don't know. I don't

154
00:08:24.000 --> 00:08:26.439
have a desire to do the whole thing, but I

155
00:08:26.439 --> 00:08:29.279
at least wanted to show you I'm participating, at least

156
00:08:29.319 --> 00:08:32.840
give you something to listen to, to encourage participation in

157
00:08:32.879 --> 00:08:36.840
this challenge, because hey, when it comes to church history,

158
00:08:36.919 --> 00:08:40.320
I cannot state this enough. Look, here's the practical. I

159
00:08:40.399 --> 00:08:43.000
may I may not know on your mark gets said, go,

160
00:08:43.159 --> 00:08:45.600
I may not know that. Okay, I may not know that,

161
00:08:45.840 --> 00:08:48.559
but I do know this, all right, I do know this.

162
00:08:48.759 --> 00:08:50.480
There's a lot of things I don't know, but when

163
00:08:50.519 --> 00:08:53.120
it comes to church history and theology, that's where I

164
00:08:53.159 --> 00:08:55.600
feel like I have at least some level of expertise.

165
00:08:55.879 --> 00:08:57.679
I may not know on your mark, get said CO,

166
00:08:57.799 --> 00:09:01.559
but I know this, this is very important. Your ignorance

167
00:09:02.120 --> 00:09:07.159
of church history, your ignorance of who Charles Finny was,

168
00:09:07.440 --> 00:09:10.159
what he taught, what he believed, and what he promoted.

169
00:09:10.360 --> 00:09:14.639
Your ignorance of anything in church history does not, in

170
00:09:14.679 --> 00:09:21.039
any way, shape or form, negate its influence upon your

171
00:09:21.200 --> 00:09:25.039
Christian life. So many things that you think, so many

172
00:09:25.080 --> 00:09:27.440
things you just think that's the way it is in Christianity,

173
00:09:27.639 --> 00:09:30.240
so many things, the way you think you've been influenced

174
00:09:30.240 --> 00:09:32.639
by things in the past. Now here's the issue. Your

175
00:09:32.720 --> 00:09:35.320
ignorance of it does not stop, does not negate its

176
00:09:35.399 --> 00:09:38.480
influence upon you. You are still influenced upon it. You

177
00:09:38.600 --> 00:09:41.639
just don't know where the influence is coming from. You

178
00:09:41.679 --> 00:09:43.600
just look. But that's the way Christians have always done it.

179
00:09:45.000 --> 00:09:48.360
Christians have always done church this way. Christians have always

180
00:09:48.360 --> 00:09:51.720
had an altar call, Christians have always had revival services.

181
00:09:52.559 --> 00:09:55.080
There's just so many that Christians have always had, pot lucks,

182
00:09:55.120 --> 00:09:59.080
chrit you just so many things that happen in your church.

183
00:09:59.120 --> 00:10:01.440
You just assume that's the way it was during the

184
00:10:01.480 --> 00:10:05.799
time of Jesus. Well, it's not. No, you've been influenced

185
00:10:05.840 --> 00:10:09.519
by so many things. Just your ignorance just means you

186
00:10:09.559 --> 00:10:13.639
don't know what you're being influenced by. Well, if there

187
00:10:13.799 --> 00:10:16.799
is eight, just think about this, Just think about how

188
00:10:16.879 --> 00:10:22.639
radical this is. If a major influence and modern day

189
00:10:22.759 --> 00:10:28.120
Christianity can be traced back to someone who actually wasn't

190
00:10:28.159 --> 00:10:33.960
a Christian, should that not bother us? Hey, Charles Finny

191
00:10:34.159 --> 00:10:39.360
had a profound impact on revivalism and the concept of

192
00:10:39.440 --> 00:10:44.159
revival and evangelical and fundamental circles. Now sad to say

193
00:10:44.320 --> 00:10:47.039
that influence comes from a man who wasn't even a Christian.

194
00:10:47.320 --> 00:10:51.600
Do you realize like that makes us look like, whoa,

195
00:10:51.879 --> 00:10:55.440
we got a problem here. We got a problem right

196
00:10:55.480 --> 00:10:57.919
here in River City, ladies and gentlemen. We got a

197
00:10:57.960 --> 00:11:01.200
problem with a capital t okay to start doing the music. Man,

198
00:11:01.279 --> 00:11:07.320
all right, but you get the idea that's that's rather profound. Now,

199
00:11:07.559 --> 00:11:10.320
I told you look up random sermons on the sermon's

200
00:11:10.320 --> 00:11:12.440
two point oh oup on Charles Finny. I said, you

201
00:11:12.480 --> 00:11:16.600
may find some that are and are pro Charles Finnie.

202
00:11:16.600 --> 00:11:19.240
They're in Team Finny. You're gonna find others who are

203
00:11:19.320 --> 00:11:23.559
very much on antire There they're in the team against

204
00:11:23.799 --> 00:11:27.000
Charles Finnie. But that guess what, you'll get to hear

205
00:11:27.039 --> 00:11:31.440
different perspectives. All right, So let's listen to revivalism and

206
00:11:31.519 --> 00:11:38.639
Charles Finny. Now I can't I still I still believe,

207
00:11:39.440 --> 00:11:42.360
like I don't know who I can convince. There's someone

208
00:11:42.399 --> 00:11:47.320
I have to convince. Sermon audio, you've got the sermon audio.

209
00:11:48.519 --> 00:11:51.879
You've got the sermon audio radio. Like it's a it's

210
00:11:51.879 --> 00:11:54.600
a tab sermon audio radio, and people can listen to

211
00:11:54.639 --> 00:11:59.480
sermon audio. But you're the the It needs to be changed, right,

212
00:11:59.840 --> 00:12:04.000
you need live people. They're hosting it, and those line

213
00:12:04.039 --> 00:12:08.000
people are putting together sermons randomly but on different like hey,

214
00:12:08.039 --> 00:12:11.039
for the next for the next three hours, today we're

215
00:12:11.080 --> 00:12:15.320
gonna only listen to sermons on Charles Fennie. Hey, the

216
00:12:15.320 --> 00:12:17.679
next three hours we're only going I mean, you could

217
00:12:17.679 --> 00:12:20.639
start the day. Today is Church History Day. Here on

218
00:12:20.759 --> 00:12:23.879
sermon audio radio, we're gonna start three. The first three

219
00:12:23.879 --> 00:12:27.320
hours is on Augustine, the next one is on Athanacious,

220
00:12:27.519 --> 00:12:30.480
the next is on and just look for sermons dealing

221
00:12:30.519 --> 00:12:32.960
with church history. You could do that and then the

222
00:12:32.960 --> 00:12:36.039
next day you could be like today it's all in Proverbs.

223
00:12:36.120 --> 00:12:39.039
We're gonna look only at sermons on Proverbs chapter one

224
00:12:39.320 --> 00:12:41.440
and then the next day today, or you can just

225
00:12:41.480 --> 00:12:43.559
break them up in segment. It's not even an entire day.

226
00:12:43.639 --> 00:12:48.720
The next four hours is only sermons on Psalms chapter three,

227
00:12:49.159 --> 00:12:52.000
or we're gonna do the next hour. The next three

228
00:12:52.039 --> 00:12:57.840
hours is just random, and you have someone introducing, guiding it,

229
00:12:58.000 --> 00:13:02.960
directing it, putting them together, and unique ways finding different sermons.

230
00:13:03.240 --> 00:13:06.120
So that because now when you listen to sermon audio radio,

231
00:13:06.480 --> 00:13:09.000
it just it's like a computer just put in and

232
00:13:09.039 --> 00:13:12.519
it's almost seems like the same names over and over

233
00:13:12.559 --> 00:13:16.399
and over and over. You have a library of millions

234
00:13:16.440 --> 00:13:23.840
of sermons. Use that library you can create, you know, man,

235
00:13:23.960 --> 00:13:26.559
I just think there's so much potential there, and so

236
00:13:26.639 --> 00:13:29.919
I would love the opportunity. Just tell me I can

237
00:13:30.000 --> 00:13:32.279
use the sermons and then I'll just introduce them and

238
00:13:32.320 --> 00:13:36.200
I'll just play them. I'll just play them. I won't

239
00:13:36.320 --> 00:13:40.159
even offer criticism or critique. Okay, now I can't I

240
00:13:40.200 --> 00:13:42.480
actually do that. I don't know, but I just think,

241
00:13:42.559 --> 00:13:45.919
but I wish I could do something like that. It

242
00:13:45.919 --> 00:13:48.120
would be so awesome to have that library and just

243
00:13:48.120 --> 00:13:53.399
be able to you know, do introductions and play the sermon,

244
00:13:53.480 --> 00:13:56.879
and then I don't know, there's I just think you

245
00:13:56.919 --> 00:14:00.519
could do something unique. But I digress. See taking too

246
00:14:00.600 --> 00:14:03.159
much time here, But are you ready? The point is

247
00:14:03.559 --> 00:14:05.559
your ignorance of all of this stuff does not negate

248
00:14:05.600 --> 00:14:08.399
its influence. And if modern day Christianity is being influenced

249
00:14:08.399 --> 00:14:10.799
by a man who turns out to not even be saved,

250
00:14:11.279 --> 00:14:16.960
that's problematic. So let's listen to this message revivalism. And

251
00:14:17.120 --> 00:14:21.080
Charles Finney from Calvary Baptist Church. I don't know how

252
00:14:21.120 --> 00:14:24.200
long we're gonna go. We're just gonna take it, and

253
00:14:24.519 --> 00:14:27.519
we may not go long. We'll see, all right, ladies

254
00:14:27.559 --> 00:14:28.960
and gentlemen, here we.

255
00:14:28.879 --> 00:14:36.000
Go for the series that we're doing on our Baptist heritage.

256
00:14:36.960 --> 00:14:41.519
And we've done many things that are principles, individual soul, liberty,

257
00:14:43.519 --> 00:14:49.840
the priesthood of the believer, Baptism by Immercian Congregational Church, government,

258
00:14:50.399 --> 00:14:52.919
and separation of church and state. Some of these things

259
00:14:52.919 --> 00:14:55.360
that have been Baptist principles. What I'm going to look

260
00:14:55.360 --> 00:14:57.960
at today is something that's a little more historical, and

261
00:14:58.000 --> 00:15:01.960
that is the idea of revival is revivalism. Now, I

262
00:15:02.039 --> 00:15:05.440
want to make a distinction here between revival and revivalism.

263
00:15:05.840 --> 00:15:08.320
All right, so let's look at the distinction. Let's look

264
00:15:08.320 --> 00:15:10.879
at the nature of revival. I think some of you

265
00:15:10.919 --> 00:15:13.080
are still getting the sheet, but I'll try not to.

266
00:15:13.720 --> 00:15:15.080
There is a lot to cover, so I'll try not

267
00:15:15.200 --> 00:15:20.799
to lose you here. But we're under point number one.

268
00:15:21.279 --> 00:15:26.879
The nature revivalism, A the nature revival and then Arabic

269
00:15:26.919 --> 00:15:28.320
one definition of revival.

270
00:15:31.600 --> 00:15:35.559
Okay, this is good stuff already. What is the difference?

271
00:15:35.600 --> 00:15:41.279
What is the distinction between revival and revivalism? What is

272
00:15:41.320 --> 00:15:46.480
the difference between revival and revivalism? Is it the same?

273
00:15:46.919 --> 00:15:49.759
Is it different? How are they related? How are they

274
00:15:49.840 --> 00:15:53.080
not related? Wow, I'm already this is I picked a

275
00:15:53.080 --> 00:15:55.799
good one. This already sounds very interesting. Starting off with

276
00:15:55.840 --> 00:16:00.679
a clear outline. All right, revival revivalism. He may define

277
00:16:00.720 --> 00:16:04.120
revival and revivalism. We may forget the distinction. Is there

278
00:16:04.159 --> 00:16:06.440
a difference we need to note? All right, let's let's

279
00:16:06.519 --> 00:16:07.159
let's find out.

280
00:16:08.399 --> 00:16:11.639
And it's very basic. A revival is the renewal of

281
00:16:11.720 --> 00:16:13.960
spiritual life to what is dead or nearly dead.

282
00:16:14.399 --> 00:16:16.320
So well else would we use this word?

283
00:16:16.879 --> 00:16:21.240
Okay, you go to the beach and someone is in distress,

284
00:16:21.279 --> 00:16:23.120
and the lifeguards go out there and they drag him

285
00:16:23.120 --> 00:16:26.799
to the shore. And this person's unconscious and they perform

286
00:16:27.000 --> 00:16:30.399
CPR on them, and the person gasps for air, and

287
00:16:30.440 --> 00:16:31.080
what do we say?

288
00:16:31.759 --> 00:16:35.159
The lifeguards revived him? Right? Okay, so the person was

289
00:16:35.240 --> 00:16:36.159
nearly dead.

290
00:16:37.960 --> 00:16:41.759
And they were revived or someone literally does their heart

291
00:16:41.879 --> 00:16:46.039
stops in the emergency room and the doctors revived them.

292
00:16:46.120 --> 00:16:46.279
Right.

293
00:16:46.320 --> 00:16:52.200
They were legally dead and clinically dead and they revived them.

294
00:16:52.279 --> 00:16:55.679
So the idea of revival is that something was spiritually

295
00:16:55.759 --> 00:16:58.759
dead and is now spiritually alive. Now, one thing I

296
00:16:58.759 --> 00:17:00.480
do want to note is do know that the word

297
00:17:00.559 --> 00:17:02.200
revival is not in the Bible.

298
00:17:05.000 --> 00:17:10.119
I feel that because he said spiritually dead, so I

299
00:17:10.279 --> 00:17:13.599
typically say spiritually dead. We're referring to lost people. I

300
00:17:13.640 --> 00:17:17.519
think revival is about Christians who are dead in a

301
00:17:17.680 --> 00:17:24.079
sense spiritual activity, spiritual passion, spiritual zeal. They've fallen, fallen

302
00:17:24.160 --> 00:17:32.839
into becoming complacent, apathetic, not caring, spiritually lifeless, spiritually dead

303
00:17:32.960 --> 00:17:36.160
in that way, and they were revived. Revival is for

304
00:17:36.240 --> 00:17:39.920
the church. Revival is for believers. Revival is not for

305
00:17:40.039 --> 00:17:44.839
the lost world. Revival is for Christians who had maybe

306
00:17:44.839 --> 00:17:48.839
a passion, a zeal of fire, a desire, and they've

307
00:17:48.920 --> 00:17:54.480
lost it. They've become discouraged, depressed, feel like giving up whatever.

308
00:17:54.519 --> 00:17:57.839
And now they are revived with a renewed passion and

309
00:17:57.960 --> 00:18:02.119
zeal for God. That I think, if we're gonna, if

310
00:18:02.160 --> 00:18:04.279
I'm even gonna even try to get into a discussion

311
00:18:04.319 --> 00:18:08.079
about defining it, I would define it more in those lines, right.

312
00:18:08.319 --> 00:18:11.359
It's for believers, it's for the church, not for the lost.

313
00:18:11.799 --> 00:18:14.119
It's for the church. I know in so many revival

314
00:18:14.119 --> 00:18:17.519
services is about bring your lost friends, bring your lost friends,

315
00:18:17.920 --> 00:18:22.119
and then it becomes an evangelistic campaign. Revival is not

316
00:18:22.160 --> 00:18:26.880
an evangelistic campaign. Revival is a call for God to

317
00:18:27.240 --> 00:18:33.559
break humble and revive his children. That is how I

318
00:18:33.799 --> 00:18:38.880
perceive it. You can obviously offer counter definition if you

319
00:18:39.000 --> 00:18:39.880
so desire.

320
00:18:41.680 --> 00:18:45.039
Okay, that doesn't necessarily mean that revivals are bad things.

321
00:18:45.920 --> 00:18:47.880
But we do need to note that I'm not aware

322
00:18:47.920 --> 00:18:49.960
of the term revival in the way that we normally

323
00:18:50.000 --> 00:18:52.680
use the term being used in the scriptures.

324
00:18:52.720 --> 00:18:53.440
So let me say this.

325
00:18:53.599 --> 00:18:58.119
I would define a revival as a spontaneous spiritual event

326
00:18:58.480 --> 00:19:02.519
that affects a congregation, nation, or region. Most revivals we're

327
00:19:02.519 --> 00:19:04.799
going to talk about tonight had to do with a

328
00:19:04.920 --> 00:19:09.559
nation or a region resulting in greater spiritual health and conversions.

329
00:19:09.559 --> 00:19:12.119
So what usually happens is the churches get healthier and

330
00:19:12.160 --> 00:19:16.240
there's people are converted. So, for example, and I'll go

331
00:19:16.279 --> 00:19:19.440
through a list of these revivals, I'll mention one that

332
00:19:19.480 --> 00:19:20.640
I think is remarkable.

333
00:19:22.799 --> 00:19:27.039
Okay, Now, if you say conversion is a side effect

334
00:19:27.240 --> 00:19:31.160
or like it's like because the church has revived, now

335
00:19:31.640 --> 00:19:35.519
they're gonna be more evangelism taking place, I would just

336
00:19:35.559 --> 00:19:39.359
say the conversion of the lost would be a side

337
00:19:39.400 --> 00:19:44.160
effect of the church being revived. But then we get

338
00:19:44.200 --> 00:19:46.680
into a discussion of well, wait a minute, So these

339
00:19:46.680 --> 00:19:49.119
people could have been saved, but they weren't saved, and

340
00:19:49.119 --> 00:19:52.000
then they get saved simply because the churches revived. Then

341
00:19:52.039 --> 00:19:54.519
does that mean salvation is not a sovereign work of God?

342
00:19:54.559 --> 00:19:57.000
And then what does election followed? Okay? I think I

343
00:19:57.039 --> 00:19:59.599
know there's a lot of philological issues that surround it.

344
00:19:59.680 --> 00:20:02.920
I'm just going to say revival itself is about the congregation,

345
00:20:03.200 --> 00:20:06.680
about the individual, It's about the children of God. What

346
00:20:06.880 --> 00:20:12.039
happens after that, Okay, But those are the side effects

347
00:20:12.079 --> 00:20:14.759
or those are the consequences of revival, but it's not

348
00:20:14.839 --> 00:20:18.720
revival itself. Revival itself is the reviving of God's people,

349
00:20:19.599 --> 00:20:21.720
and I do agree it's spontaneous. I don't think you

350
00:20:21.759 --> 00:20:24.960
can if you schedule it, then you typically then rely

351
00:20:25.119 --> 00:20:29.440
on techniques to manipulate. Then the emotional response where people

352
00:20:29.519 --> 00:20:32.720
fil revived, but it's only because they've been revived through

353
00:20:33.079 --> 00:20:37.319
psychological techniques that get them all fired up, and then

354
00:20:37.400 --> 00:20:39.759
it all crashes and burns.

355
00:20:42.000 --> 00:20:44.720
In American history, we've already covered it a little bit,

356
00:20:44.799 --> 00:20:47.319
but that's the great Awakening, which is point D under two.

357
00:20:48.160 --> 00:20:51.000
I've created this definition from various definitions of revival I've

358
00:20:51.000 --> 00:20:53.920
come across. Based on this definition, we would all desire

359
00:20:53.960 --> 00:20:56.759
that God would send a revival. Okay, if you accept

360
00:20:56.799 --> 00:21:00.599
this as the definition revival, that is that God's spontaneously

361
00:21:00.720 --> 00:21:05.000
spiritually works in a congregation, a nation, or a region regrets,

362
00:21:05.839 --> 00:21:11.039
resulting in greater spiritual health or end conversions when we

363
00:21:11.039 --> 00:21:13.400
want that. In other words, would we say we would

364
00:21:13.440 --> 00:21:15.359
like to see Calvary Baptist Church see a work of

365
00:21:15.359 --> 00:21:18.359
God in which there's greater spiritual health in our congregation

366
00:21:18.400 --> 00:21:21.640
and people are converted. Who would complain about that? Nobody

367
00:21:21.680 --> 00:21:23.640
would complain about that, right, we'd all say thank the

368
00:21:23.680 --> 00:21:28.359
Lord for his work. And historically there have been revivals

369
00:21:28.720 --> 00:21:31.359
in which we can point to we saw in history

370
00:21:31.559 --> 00:21:35.200
God did something like this. Okay, some of these and

371
00:21:35.279 --> 00:21:37.079
I'll get into that in a minute. The Ulster Revival

372
00:21:37.079 --> 00:21:40.440
of sixteen twenty five in Ireland, the Pietistic Revival of

373
00:21:40.480 --> 00:21:43.039
Germany which began about sixteen sixty six.

374
00:21:44.640 --> 00:21:48.759
Probably the best known group of these would be.

375
00:21:50.960 --> 00:21:52.599
This would have been I'm not sure if you're that

376
00:21:52.640 --> 00:21:55.680
familiar with the Pietists, but they were the precursors to

377
00:21:55.720 --> 00:21:58.839
the Moravians, who also come about one hundred years little

378
00:21:58.960 --> 00:22:02.839
less than a hundred years later after that. But Count

379
00:22:02.920 --> 00:22:05.319
Nicholas von Zinzendorf, that may not be a name you're

380
00:22:05.319 --> 00:22:07.400
really familiar with. There's actually a couple hymns in our

381
00:22:07.480 --> 00:22:10.720
Hymnal were written by Sinzendorf, and that comes out of

382
00:22:10.720 --> 00:22:13.680
that Pietism. What had happened is Germany had the Lutheranism

383
00:22:13.680 --> 00:22:17.559
in Germany had become stagnated, and there was it had

384
00:22:17.599 --> 00:22:20.559
become academic, and so there was this idea of we

385
00:22:20.599 --> 00:22:24.400
need some spiritual fervor, we need some spiritual you know, affection,

386
00:22:24.680 --> 00:22:27.519
some love for God, not just going through the motions.

387
00:22:27.680 --> 00:22:31.440
The Moravian Revival. The Moravians were influential in another one

388
00:22:31.480 --> 00:22:33.799
of these, and that's point e, the Wesleyan Revival. It's

389
00:22:33.839 --> 00:22:37.039
because of the steadiness of the Moravians that John Wesley

390
00:22:37.079 --> 00:22:42.240
had his evangelical conversion and saw a significant revival in England.

391
00:22:42.440 --> 00:22:44.640
All right, the Great Awakening. The leaders in the Great

392
00:22:44.640 --> 00:22:48.200
Awakening were Jonathan Edwards and George Whitfield were some of

393
00:22:48.200 --> 00:22:52.559
the notable leaders in that time period. Whitfield sort of

394
00:22:52.559 --> 00:22:54.559
at the end of it, Jonathan Edwards at the beginning

395
00:22:54.559 --> 00:22:59.480
of it. Interestingly, Jonathan edwards book about the revival in

396
00:22:59.480 --> 00:23:03.319
Northampton is entitled something like the Surprising Work of God,

397
00:23:04.279 --> 00:23:06.119
and they had these really long titles, but it begins

398
00:23:06.119 --> 00:23:08.680
with the Surprising Work of God. In other words, the

399
00:23:08.680 --> 00:23:11.160
way Jonathan Edwards, who was really the one who started

400
00:23:12.319 --> 00:23:15.319
humanly speaking, who the Lord used to start the Great Awakening,

401
00:23:15.759 --> 00:23:19.400
was a man who said, basically, God did this all right,

402
00:23:19.440 --> 00:23:21.759
I just preached the Word and God did this. Sinners

403
00:23:21.759 --> 00:23:23.680
in the hands of an angry God. If you ever

404
00:23:23.720 --> 00:23:26.759
want to know if somebody's off base, historically, listen to

405
00:23:26.799 --> 00:23:28.839
the way they deal with the Great Awakening.

406
00:23:29.440 --> 00:23:30.480
I have heard.

407
00:23:31.880 --> 00:23:34.480
Historians on the History Channel and these kind of things

408
00:23:34.480 --> 00:23:38.079
say things like Jonathan Edwards stirred people up into an

409
00:23:38.119 --> 00:23:41.920
emotional frenzy, and he preached this helfire and brimstone sermon,

410
00:23:42.039 --> 00:23:43.880
Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God. Let me

411
00:23:43.920 --> 00:23:45.759
commend to you the reading of Sinners in the Hands

412
00:23:45.759 --> 00:23:47.440
of an Angry God. You can find free copies of

413
00:23:47.480 --> 00:23:50.960
it on the Internet, and you can see he's preaching

414
00:23:51.000 --> 00:23:52.759
to a congregation of people which had a lot of

415
00:23:52.880 --> 00:23:56.160
unbelievers in the congregation, many unconverted people in the church,

416
00:23:56.200 --> 00:23:58.160
and he was preaching to them to convert, to come

417
00:23:58.160 --> 00:24:02.079
to faith and repentance in Christ. But the thing is,

418
00:24:02.119 --> 00:24:05.160
if you know anything about Edwards, he read his sermons

419
00:24:07.039 --> 00:24:10.519
and he read them with some emotion, but there was

420
00:24:10.559 --> 00:24:13.759
no pulpit pounding or screaming and yelling.

421
00:24:14.799 --> 00:24:16.440
So this was not the kind of thing.

422
00:24:16.279 --> 00:24:21.440
That was as we think of today, you know, hyper emotionalistic.

423
00:24:21.759 --> 00:24:23.720
And it's always interesting because what that is is that's

424
00:24:23.759 --> 00:24:25.920
a historian who doesn't really understand the fact who's reading

425
00:24:25.960 --> 00:24:28.680
into it. You know, he thinks that he was oral

426
00:24:28.759 --> 00:24:31.559
Roberts or something. You know, some kind of thing like that.

427
00:24:32.160 --> 00:24:34.079
Reading that back into Jonathan Edwards, it's not what it was.

428
00:24:34.160 --> 00:24:37.920
Jonathan Edwards was actually surprised by the mass amount of

429
00:24:37.960 --> 00:24:42.279
conversions and people coming back to a walk with the Lord.

430
00:24:42.559 --> 00:24:44.559
George Whitfield admittedly was.

431
00:24:44.480 --> 00:24:48.319
A little more dramatic in his preaching Godly Man, but

432
00:24:48.359 --> 00:24:50.519
he was also involved in the Wesleyan Revivals, or what

433
00:24:50.519 --> 00:24:54.200
we'd call the Methodist revivals. George Whitfield was a Methodist

434
00:24:54.279 --> 00:24:57.759
along with John and Charles Wesley. Those were primarily in England,

435
00:24:57.799 --> 00:24:59.039
the Wesleyan Revivals.

436
00:25:00.920 --> 00:25:05.359
Now we can ask ourselves the Pietistic Pietism revival and

437
00:25:05.400 --> 00:25:12.119
the Wesleyan revival, Pietism and Wesleyanism. Pietism and Wesleyanism. Here

438
00:25:12.160 --> 00:25:16.039
it would be the question, how philologically sound is Wesleyanism

439
00:25:16.079 --> 00:25:21.319
and Pietism. What would be some philological issues that would

440
00:25:21.319 --> 00:25:24.200
arise out of Pietism and Wesleyanism. Now, if you're having

441
00:25:24.240 --> 00:25:30.079
a revival of Pietism or Wesleyanism, how do we judge

442
00:25:30.119 --> 00:25:35.440
those revivals in regards to philological issues that may we

443
00:25:35.559 --> 00:25:38.000
agree or disagree with. See a lot of times we

444
00:25:38.079 --> 00:25:42.720
judge revivals by the response, the numbers, the way people acted,

445
00:25:43.079 --> 00:25:48.759
the fervor, the excitement, the brokenness, the emotions, whatever the

446
00:25:48.799 --> 00:25:52.480
case may be. But should we judge a revival on

447
00:25:52.559 --> 00:25:56.160
the number of people who have an experience or whatever

448
00:25:56.200 --> 00:25:58.880
the case may be, or the numbers the numbers of people,

449
00:25:59.039 --> 00:26:01.160
or do we judge it on the base of the

450
00:26:01.160 --> 00:26:11.759
theology that arises from that movement, that revival Pietism and Wesleyanism.

451
00:26:11.960 --> 00:26:15.920
Right now, I almost want to look some things up

452
00:26:16.000 --> 00:26:18.519
right now, but I will not because then because it'll

453
00:26:18.559 --> 00:26:21.039
be awkward. But we need to write those down. So

454
00:26:21.039 --> 00:26:29.559
I'm going to write down the word Pietism and Wesleyanism

455
00:26:29.880 --> 00:26:32.720
if I can spell right. I probably spelled it incorrectly,

456
00:26:32.799 --> 00:26:36.160
but I can read it Wesleyanism and Pietism, and then

457
00:26:36.240 --> 00:26:39.680
maybe we'll come back to those at some point. But hey,

458
00:26:39.720 --> 00:26:41.960
if a lot of times Christians love to go there

459
00:26:42.039 --> 00:26:43.880
was this move of God, and this move of God

460
00:26:43.880 --> 00:26:46.400
and this move of God. But sometimes we have to

461
00:26:46.440 --> 00:26:48.279
go and go, well, wait, wait, what what was actually

462
00:26:48.319 --> 00:26:51.400
happening at that time? When someone says the Azusa Street revival,

463
00:26:52.119 --> 00:26:54.440
I'm sorry, that's not a revival from God. That whole

464
00:26:54.440 --> 00:26:58.720
thing was a radical, right, So just because some move

465
00:26:58.920 --> 00:27:02.720
happened doesn't mean it's from God. With the Brownsville Revival,

466
00:27:02.799 --> 00:27:05.680
Lakeland Revival, there's been a lot of these charismatics, so

467
00:27:05.839 --> 00:27:11.480
called revivals, and they're total in utter cancer upon Christianity.

468
00:27:13.039 --> 00:27:16.039
So you can look up Pietism, Wesleyanism and draw your

469
00:27:16.079 --> 00:27:16.759
own conclusion.

470
00:27:19.640 --> 00:27:21.519
In eighteen hundred we come through.

471
00:27:21.519 --> 00:27:23.880
About eighteen thirty we start to see he really goes

472
00:27:23.880 --> 00:27:26.319
a little later that maybe eighteen thirty five we see

473
00:27:26.359 --> 00:27:28.319
the second grade in Awakening, and this is a mixed

474
00:27:28.359 --> 00:27:31.079
group even in the first grade Awakening. In the Great Awakening,

475
00:27:31.119 --> 00:27:34.160
there was an issue, and that is Jonathan Edwards wrote

476
00:27:34.279 --> 00:27:38.240
more pages criticizing the excesses of people who picked up

477
00:27:38.519 --> 00:27:41.279
the Great Awakening than he did defending the Great Awakening.

478
00:27:41.319 --> 00:27:44.200
He did write a book to defend.

479
00:27:43.880 --> 00:27:46.000
The Great Awakening because there were some people criticizing it,

480
00:27:46.279 --> 00:27:48.880
but he wrote more books criticizing the excesses because as

481
00:27:48.920 --> 00:27:51.519
the Great Awakening spread, what happened is you started to

482
00:27:51.599 --> 00:27:53.839
have elements that we would really today view as somewhat

483
00:27:53.880 --> 00:27:57.920
kind of charismatic elements. People barking, people being slain in

484
00:27:57.920 --> 00:28:00.920
the spirit, people you know, back flipping down the aisles

485
00:28:00.920 --> 00:28:03.240
on these kinds of things of church and all of

486
00:28:03.240 --> 00:28:05.480
that kind of showy kind of thing took a place

487
00:28:05.519 --> 00:28:09.200
to a limited extent, to some extent in the Great Awakening.

488
00:28:09.200 --> 00:28:12.039
It was far more common in the Second Grade Awakening,

489
00:28:12.119 --> 00:28:14.920
especially in the Frontier. So you got to remember in

490
00:28:14.960 --> 00:28:19.079
eighteen hundred to eighteen thirty, the frontier's places like Tennessee

491
00:28:19.119 --> 00:28:22.960
and Kentucky. Okay, the frontier in Jonathan Edwards's day was Connecticut,

492
00:28:23.759 --> 00:28:26.880
but or New Jersey, your places like that, the various

493
00:28:26.960 --> 00:28:30.279
unsettled regions of that Vermont was the frontier in their day.

494
00:28:30.279 --> 00:28:33.680
But there were some of these excesses. So the Second

495
00:28:33.680 --> 00:28:35.759
Grade Awakening, the best known leader of it is a

496
00:28:35.759 --> 00:28:38.359
man named Charles G. Finnie. We're going to look at

497
00:28:38.400 --> 00:28:41.799
him tonight. He is the founder, really called the grandfather

498
00:28:41.880 --> 00:28:46.000
of Revivalism, Asahil Nettleton was a little more sound theologically

499
00:28:46.440 --> 00:28:50.279
than Charles Finny. Alexander Campbell, this is we mentioned the

500
00:28:50.279 --> 00:28:52.160
Campbell's a little while ago, a couple of weeks ago.

501
00:28:52.559 --> 00:28:58.400
Alexander Campbell was the founder of the groups that believe

502
00:28:58.440 --> 00:29:01.319
in baptismal regeneration, that you have to be baptized to

503
00:29:01.319 --> 00:29:03.880
be saved. Churches today would be called the Disciples of

504
00:29:03.960 --> 00:29:06.240
Christ and churches of Christ and those kinds of things,

505
00:29:07.359 --> 00:29:09.839
and Christian Church and that kind.

506
00:29:11.480 --> 00:29:13.319
I want you to know. See now, see this is

507
00:29:13.359 --> 00:29:17.160
now just think about this logically, and the Great Awakening

508
00:29:17.240 --> 00:29:20.519
and the Second Great Awakening supposedly a.

509
00:29:20.440 --> 00:29:21.200
Move of God.

510
00:29:21.960 --> 00:29:26.119
But out of this move of God comes absolutely heretical,

511
00:29:26.960 --> 00:29:34.920
excessive abuses, crazy thilological concepts. So where do you draw

512
00:29:34.960 --> 00:29:37.039
the line between the move of God and the move

513
00:29:37.079 --> 00:29:39.559
of man? Where do you draw the line this is

514
00:29:39.599 --> 00:29:41.319
the move of God? Well wait a minute. When you

515
00:29:41.359 --> 00:29:47.519
have abuses and excesses and absolute, absolute heresy, then is

516
00:29:47.599 --> 00:29:50.519
that do you still when does it stop being the

517
00:29:50.559 --> 00:29:52.759
move of God? See a lot of times we just

518
00:29:52.799 --> 00:29:56.240
look at these movements, we're like, well, all this was happening,

519
00:29:56.519 --> 00:29:59.720
there was an explosion of religious fervor, there was maybe

520
00:29:59.720 --> 00:30:04.200
an a explosion of maybe a focus on religious ideas,

521
00:30:04.400 --> 00:30:08.880
But what's emerging from it or utterly philological heretics. Then

522
00:30:08.920 --> 00:30:11.640
I don't I think you've stopped blaming God for that move.

523
00:30:11.920 --> 00:30:16.160
And you say, well, whatever happened happened. But sooner or

524
00:30:16.279 --> 00:30:21.279
later men took over and it became driven and motivated

525
00:30:21.279 --> 00:30:28.359
and guided by personality, by celebrity, by whatever, because It's

526
00:30:28.519 --> 00:30:31.960
funny he's talking about these two great revivals, the Great

527
00:30:31.960 --> 00:30:35.799
Awakening and Great Awakening too, and then he's immediately acknowledging

528
00:30:35.839 --> 00:30:38.160
all the problems that were happening within it and some

529
00:30:38.200 --> 00:30:44.920
of the people involved in it. When when do you say, well,

530
00:30:45.000 --> 00:30:47.400
I think the move of God has already stopped.

531
00:30:49.839 --> 00:30:50.279
Kind of thing.

532
00:30:50.359 --> 00:30:54.799
So lots of interesting things. Honestly, some of the worst

533
00:30:54.839 --> 00:30:58.720
aberrations in American Christianity are rooted in the second Great Awakening.

534
00:31:00.519 --> 00:31:03.440
I'm not really over emphasizing that. One of them is

535
00:31:03.519 --> 00:31:07.640
Charles Finney's methods. Second, some of the other things that

536
00:31:07.720 --> 00:31:12.880
come up out of American Christianity that really are false teachings,

537
00:31:12.880 --> 00:31:16.759
like Mormonism and eventually Jehovah's Witnesses have their roots in

538
00:31:16.799 --> 00:31:19.880
the Second Grade Awakening, all right, So because of some

539
00:31:19.920 --> 00:31:22.359
of the excesses in the Second Grade Awakening. So if

540
00:31:22.400 --> 00:31:23.680
you were to ask me it was the Second Grade

541
00:31:23.720 --> 00:31:26.680
Awakening a good thing? Well, if the work that Ossa Hill,

542
00:31:26.720 --> 00:31:28.599
Nettleton and some others were doing, yes, there were some

543
00:31:28.680 --> 00:31:31.440
good people coming to Christ and things. Some of the

544
00:31:31.480 --> 00:31:33.359
other things that took place in the Second Grade Awakening.

545
00:31:33.640 --> 00:31:35.359
As a church, I think we would want nothing to

546
00:31:35.400 --> 00:31:36.920
do with Obviously, we don't want anything to do with

547
00:31:37.000 --> 00:31:40.200
Holy barking and Mormonism and things like that, but a

548
00:31:40.200 --> 00:31:45.160
lot of those things have their roots. In fact, Joseph

549
00:31:45.200 --> 00:31:47.440
Smith grew up in the same area of New York

550
00:31:47.480 --> 00:31:52.759
as Charles Finny. They come out of similar backgrounds, similar

551
00:31:52.759 --> 00:31:56.839
overreactions to things. By eighteen fifty seven to eighteen sixty,

552
00:31:56.839 --> 00:31:59.359
there's a prayer meeting revival that was led by Jeremiah

553
00:31:59.440 --> 00:32:02.160
Lanfear and New York City, in which he got men

554
00:32:02.279 --> 00:32:05.799
to come and meet for prayer during their lunch hour,

555
00:32:05.839 --> 00:32:10.319
and it started seeing churches full and people coming to

556
00:32:10.319 --> 00:32:12.759
pray and wonderful prayer meeting revival.

557
00:32:15.279 --> 00:32:17.240
I think I will argue that a good portion of

558
00:32:17.279 --> 00:32:21.079
the second grade awakening was not an awakening from God.

559
00:32:21.440 --> 00:32:24.640
It was awakening to a lot of maybe spirituality and

560
00:32:24.680 --> 00:32:29.319
theological ideas, but it was heresy everywhere. Just he talked

561
00:32:29.359 --> 00:32:33.359
about Pietism and Wesleyanism. When you want to talk about

562
00:32:33.400 --> 00:32:37.039
Wesleyan theology, I would just point you to one of

563
00:32:37.039 --> 00:32:42.039
them absolutely abhorrent things of Wesleyanism is their doctrine just

564
00:32:42.160 --> 00:32:45.960
on sanctification. All right, let me just quote Wesleyan theology

565
00:32:46.160 --> 00:32:50.240
places strong emphasis on sanctification, the process by which a

566
00:32:50.279 --> 00:32:57.200
believer is made holy. Wesleyans believe an entire sanctification, also

567
00:32:57.319 --> 00:33:01.240
known as Christian perfection, where a believer can reach a

568
00:33:01.279 --> 00:33:04.799
state of perfect love and freedom from wilful sin through

569
00:33:04.839 --> 00:33:11.640
the Holy Spirit. That's utterly heretical Wesleyan. If do you

570
00:33:11.720 --> 00:33:17.079
have a revival and Wesleyan theology, the Wesleyan revival, that's

571
00:33:17.119 --> 00:33:22.200
not from God, So you can already cross out Wesleyanism.

572
00:33:22.279 --> 00:33:25.359
Continue to look at the rest of the Pietism Wesleyanism.

573
00:33:26.759 --> 00:33:29.960
Anything associated with Finny we already know is utterly heretical.

574
00:33:31.119 --> 00:33:34.599
So see again, people love, We love to look back.

575
00:33:34.640 --> 00:33:36.839
So this is one of the issues with church history.

576
00:33:37.240 --> 00:33:39.400
We love to look back to church history. And here's

577
00:33:39.400 --> 00:33:41.759
what we do. We love to look back. First we

578
00:33:41.799 --> 00:33:45.400
look for anything that will support our side, anything that

579
00:33:45.440 --> 00:33:48.279
we think will support our side. We'll reach into church

580
00:33:48.359 --> 00:33:50.640
history like it's a buffet, grab it and say, see

581
00:33:50.680 --> 00:33:54.319
they agreed with us. Utterly ridiculous. When people do that,

582
00:33:55.160 --> 00:33:57.039
and then what we have another thing we have a

583
00:33:57.079 --> 00:33:59.119
tendency to do. Not only do we reach back and

584
00:33:59.200 --> 00:34:02.160
grab anything that will support our view, then we will

585
00:34:02.200 --> 00:34:05.599
tend to have a tendency. We look back and romanticize it,

586
00:34:05.920 --> 00:34:10.039
we turn it into like this fairy tale of church history.

587
00:34:10.719 --> 00:34:12.840
Whenever you look at church history, you don't look to

588
00:34:12.880 --> 00:34:15.039
see what agrees with you or disagrees with you. You

589
00:34:15.039 --> 00:34:18.159
don't romanticize it. You just let it be what it was,

590
00:34:18.440 --> 00:34:20.400
the good, the bad, the ugly. And you know what

591
00:34:20.519 --> 00:34:24.320
church history always is. It's the history of sinners trying

592
00:34:24.360 --> 00:34:28.199
to figure out Christianity. And there is sin, and there

593
00:34:28.239 --> 00:34:33.199
is fighting and arguing. Sometimes there's killing. There's deceit, there's

594
00:34:33.320 --> 00:34:38.880
church splits, there's false doctrine, there's heresy, n It's filled

595
00:34:38.920 --> 00:34:42.039
with the same stuff that modern day church history is

596
00:34:42.079 --> 00:34:45.079
filled with. It's filled with the same stuff the Bible

597
00:34:45.199 --> 00:34:49.400
was filled with sinners trying to walk with God and

598
00:34:49.480 --> 00:34:54.199
doing so imperfectly, and selfishness and pride and ego and

599
00:34:54.280 --> 00:35:01.119
position and celebrity and fame and politics and everything is present.

600
00:35:01.400 --> 00:35:03.400
When you look at church history, you look and let

601
00:35:03.400 --> 00:35:05.880
it be what it is. Don't make them what they're not,

602
00:35:06.280 --> 00:35:09.280
don't try to use them for your advantage. Let them

603
00:35:09.360 --> 00:35:14.239
be who they were, good and the bad. And when

604
00:35:14.280 --> 00:35:16.559
we look at some of these so called oh if

605
00:35:16.559 --> 00:35:19.280
we could go back to those times of great revival.

606
00:35:19.599 --> 00:35:22.440
Some of those great revivals produce some of the greatest

607
00:35:22.639 --> 00:35:25.480
heretical teachings in the history of Christianity.

608
00:35:28.599 --> 00:35:28.800
Well.

609
00:35:28.840 --> 00:35:31.159
Another well known revival is the Welsh Revival of nineteen

610
00:35:31.159 --> 00:35:32.239
oh four to nineteen oh five.

611
00:35:32.320 --> 00:35:34.400
The key leader of that was a man named Evan Roberts.

612
00:35:35.079 --> 00:35:37.880
And there have been claims of revival since the early

613
00:35:37.920 --> 00:35:40.599
twentieth century, but many of them have been localized or

614
00:35:40.599 --> 00:35:43.480
primarily charismatic in flavor. If you look up revivals online,

615
00:35:43.519 --> 00:35:45.440
one of the things you'll find is they'll start mentioning

616
00:35:45.519 --> 00:35:48.880
a Zuza Street Revival. If you're a little familiar with

617
00:35:48.920 --> 00:35:51.360
American church history, the Azuza Street Revival is the birth

618
00:35:51.400 --> 00:35:54.679
of Pentecostalism in America. So some of those kinds of

619
00:35:54.719 --> 00:35:57.440
things start. That's about right around nineteen hundred, I think

620
00:35:57.480 --> 00:35:58.920
it was nineteen oh three or nineteen oh five.

621
00:35:58.960 --> 00:36:02.760
You see the Azusa Street Revival and those kinds of things.

622
00:36:02.840 --> 00:36:05.719
So not saying there haven't been any revivals, but the

623
00:36:05.840 --> 00:36:10.159
really big kind of nationally impactful ones, regionally impactful ones.

624
00:36:10.400 --> 00:36:13.480
I've listed many of them here. The Baptist benefited from

625
00:36:13.480 --> 00:36:16.840
many of the historical revivals. The Great Awakenings. These things

626
00:36:17.000 --> 00:36:20.400
Baptists caused Baptist churches to grow, caused them to see

627
00:36:20.440 --> 00:36:21.480
people reached for the.

628
00:36:21.400 --> 00:36:24.280
Gospel, and had a positive impact on.

629
00:36:24.280 --> 00:36:28.920
Baptist churches overall because the revivals were usually trans denominational,

630
00:36:28.960 --> 00:36:32.400
though Baptists were also influenced by the theological and practical

631
00:36:32.400 --> 00:36:35.519
ethos of the revivals. In other words, because the revivals

632
00:36:35.519 --> 00:36:38.280
didn't just Jonathan Edwards was a Congregationalist, but the Great

633
00:36:38.280 --> 00:36:42.360
Awakening didn't just happen among Congregationalists, all right, And because

634
00:36:42.400 --> 00:36:46.320
it influenced Presbyterians and Baptists and others, those groups intermingled.

635
00:36:46.360 --> 00:36:49.599
And what happened is then things that were distinctively Baptists

636
00:36:49.639 --> 00:36:53.440
the Baptists sometimes lost because of the intermingling with other denominations.

637
00:36:54.400 --> 00:36:57.199
And think about this, if you have a rapid.

638
00:36:56.880 --> 00:37:00.440
Growth to your group, if tomorrow there were four more

639
00:37:00.440 --> 00:37:03.920
Baptist churches in winder Garden, mostly full of new converts,

640
00:37:05.239 --> 00:37:09.800
what kind of theological things would we be discussing. Think

641
00:37:09.840 --> 00:37:12.039
about that these are enough people who have grown up

642
00:37:12.199 --> 00:37:14.400
with a Christian background. They'd have all kinds of new

643
00:37:14.400 --> 00:37:16.559
ideas and there'd be a lot of teaching that would

644
00:37:16.559 --> 00:37:20.920
take place to try to bring them into understanding biblical truth, right,

645
00:37:21.119 --> 00:37:23.519
because they'd be bringing in worldly ideas, and they'd be

646
00:37:23.559 --> 00:37:26.920
bringing in ideas of you know, well, you know, in

647
00:37:26.960 --> 00:37:28.599
the church I used to go to, we prayed the Rosary.

648
00:37:28.599 --> 00:37:31.519
How come we don't do that here? Well, you have

649
00:37:31.559 --> 00:37:33.800
to have an answer for that. And if it's growing

650
00:37:33.840 --> 00:37:36.000
too fast and there's not enough, think of the frontier

651
00:37:36.000 --> 00:37:39.679
in America, not enough pastors. Many churches didn't have a pastor,

652
00:37:39.679 --> 00:37:41.440
they had a circuit rider who'd come once a month.

653
00:37:41.880 --> 00:37:44.000
Then it was very hard sometimes to keep control of

654
00:37:44.000 --> 00:37:45.639
some of these theological ideas.

655
00:37:45.280 --> 00:37:45.800
That came up.

656
00:37:46.119 --> 00:37:49.039
All right, So let's consider the nature of revivalism. So

657
00:37:49.320 --> 00:37:50.840
as I would say, we thank God when he does

658
00:37:50.880 --> 00:37:53.679
bring revival, We thank him for his goodness. We thank

659
00:37:53.760 --> 00:37:56.119
the Lord for when churches are made healthy and people

660
00:37:56.159 --> 00:38:02.199
are converted. But that's different than revivalism. Okay, revivalism is

661
00:38:02.239 --> 00:38:05.960
different from revival. Revivalism is the belief that the application

662
00:38:06.079 --> 00:38:10.280
of certain methods will certainly bring revival. In other words,

663
00:38:10.320 --> 00:38:13.400
it's not a surprising work of God. It's the implicate

664
00:38:13.480 --> 00:38:15.320
implementation of certain methods.

665
00:38:17.480 --> 00:38:20.320
All right, Now, that's fascinating. Revivalism is about the use

666
00:38:20.360 --> 00:38:24.280
of methods to bring about revival. I will say this,

667
00:38:24.639 --> 00:38:30.320
whether remove the word revivalism, remove the word revival. Churches

668
00:38:31.440 --> 00:38:36.559
across the board, from Lutheran to Presbyterian, to Baptists, to

669
00:38:36.719 --> 00:38:43.000
Charismatic to Church of Christ, oh across denominational lines, they

670
00:38:43.199 --> 00:38:51.159
use methods. They constantly are strategizing and coming up with methods. Well, okay,

671
00:38:51.159 --> 00:38:53.079
what method what strategy a were going to use for

672
00:38:53.119 --> 00:38:55.760
our stewardship program? Because we got to bring in a

673
00:38:55.760 --> 00:38:59.280
certain amount of money? Okay, what what strategy? What? What?

674
00:38:59.280 --> 00:39:01.480
What techniques are we going to utilize to try to

675
00:39:01.519 --> 00:39:04.320
get more people into the church because we're losing people.

676
00:39:04.400 --> 00:39:06.239
We got to maintain. We got to bring in a

677
00:39:06.239 --> 00:39:09.159
certain amount of people in order to maintain what we have.

678
00:39:09.280 --> 00:39:11.320
Remember I read that one study that you have to

679
00:39:11.320 --> 00:39:13.800
bring in like thirty people a year just simply to

680
00:39:13.840 --> 00:39:18.400
maintain your church. Churches are constantly looking. They may not

681
00:39:18.480 --> 00:39:21.639
say we're using these methods for revival, but churches are

682
00:39:21.920 --> 00:39:26.960
very much strategically driven by methods, by techniques. Let's try this,

683
00:39:27.199 --> 00:39:31.039
let's do this, We'll do we'll change our schedules, We'll

684
00:39:31.039 --> 00:39:33.800
do this, we'll do that, We'll add this, we'll do

685
00:39:34.000 --> 00:39:36.480
a wanna because if we get a Wana, we'll bring

686
00:39:37.079 --> 00:39:39.440
parents will bring their kids to our Auana program and

687
00:39:39.480 --> 00:39:41.920
then maybe then the parents will join the church. We'll

688
00:39:41.960 --> 00:39:44.920
do vacation, Bible school and all of this. Though as

689
00:39:45.039 --> 00:39:47.840
much as you want to say it's about educating, it's

690
00:39:47.880 --> 00:39:51.119
about doing this. Not in every case, but in many cases,

691
00:39:51.199 --> 00:39:55.559
it's more of a strategy and how to grow the church.

692
00:39:57.039 --> 00:39:59.960
So many things that we say it's about loving people,

693
00:40:00.239 --> 00:40:04.000
it's about serving people, it's about bringing the gospel. I'm

694
00:40:04.039 --> 00:40:06.519
not going to say there's none of that there, But

695
00:40:06.679 --> 00:40:09.719
overall it's about how to get people into the building,

696
00:40:09.960 --> 00:40:15.320
to give money so that you can support the entire machine,

697
00:40:15.119 --> 00:40:17.760
the whole beast that you've got to feed the beast.

698
00:40:17.800 --> 00:40:19.840
You got to keep the machine going. And what do

699
00:40:19.840 --> 00:40:23.039
you need. You need people and you need money because

700
00:40:23.079 --> 00:40:25.480
without people, without money, you can't pay the bills. You

701
00:40:25.519 --> 00:40:28.039
can't pay the bills, people lose their jobs or you

702
00:40:28.159 --> 00:40:30.639
lose the building, and you can't do this. So you

703
00:40:30.719 --> 00:40:33.480
constantly are coming. And the goal with everything is how

704
00:40:33.559 --> 00:40:36.920
will it bring more people into the church. Many churches

705
00:40:36.960 --> 00:40:40.199
start church schools in order to well. Then people will

706
00:40:40.199 --> 00:40:42.239
bring their kids to the school, and if they bring

707
00:40:42.280 --> 00:40:44.440
them to the school, then maybe they'll come to the church.

708
00:40:44.679 --> 00:40:48.440
It's so many and I'm not saying that there's not

709
00:40:48.639 --> 00:40:53.239
good motives, but we all know we're sinners and sometimes

710
00:40:53.239 --> 00:40:58.679
we have ulterior motives. So where do motives or where

711
00:40:58.719 --> 00:41:03.079
does strategies and where does techniques? Where do they stay

712
00:41:03.559 --> 00:41:06.159
in line with scripture? And when do we at some

713
00:41:06.320 --> 00:41:10.960
point we're overstepping and we're turning the church really into

714
00:41:11.039 --> 00:41:13.760
like we're running a business. We need marketing, we need

715
00:41:13.800 --> 00:41:17.079
a marketing strategy. We need this, we need that, we

716
00:41:17.119 --> 00:41:19.599
need well this work? Will this bring more people in?

717
00:41:19.719 --> 00:41:22.639
How do we measure success? How many people participated? How

718
00:41:22.639 --> 00:41:24.719
many people showed up for Sunday Night? How many people

719
00:41:24.760 --> 00:41:27.199
how many people are participating in our small groups? Okay,

720
00:41:27.239 --> 00:41:29.559
how about this? How many people are listening to our podcast?

721
00:41:29.679 --> 00:41:33.360
How many people listening to us our sermon downloads? Everything

722
00:41:33.480 --> 00:41:39.079
is a pragmatic, strategic approach, and at what point does

723
00:41:39.119 --> 00:41:43.800
all of that become unscriptural and ungodly?

724
00:41:47.599 --> 00:41:50.800
Revivals took place previous to the development of revivalism, which

725
00:41:50.840 --> 00:41:54.559
is interesting. I guess what the revival When we'll look

726
00:41:54.599 --> 00:41:56.679
at Charles Finny because he's the grandfather of it. What

727
00:41:56.800 --> 00:41:59.159
Charles Finny probably would have said, I don't mean to

728
00:41:59.159 --> 00:42:02.079
speak for him, would have something like Edwards was doing

729
00:42:02.119 --> 00:42:05.440
these methods without knowing he was doing them. But Edwards

730
00:42:05.440 --> 00:42:08.079
actually would have repudiated Finny. No, I know enough about

731
00:42:08.159 --> 00:42:12.400
Edward's philosophy and theology, they would repudiated Finny. In practice,

732
00:42:12.480 --> 00:42:16.079
revivalism teaches that Christianity is dead and unhealthy if it

733
00:42:16.079 --> 00:42:20.039
does not apply the revivalistic methods developed by various revivalists

734
00:42:20.079 --> 00:42:22.239
over the years. In other words, if you don't apply

735
00:42:22.320 --> 00:42:23.280
these methods, your church.

736
00:42:23.199 --> 00:42:24.280
Is going to be dead.

737
00:42:24.800 --> 00:42:27.639
Ironically, revivals have taken place without the application of these

738
00:42:27.679 --> 00:42:31.239
revivalistic methods. So that to me is an issue if

739
00:42:31.239 --> 00:42:33.039
it's just the result of means, and why does it

740
00:42:33.079 --> 00:42:37.159
happen when you don't apply these means? And that's I

741
00:42:37.159 --> 00:42:39.119
would contend, because it's a work of the Spirit over

742
00:42:39.119 --> 00:42:42.079
who we are not sovereign, We don't have the ability

743
00:42:42.119 --> 00:42:43.639
to manipulate the spirit.

744
00:42:43.679 --> 00:42:44.159
But we'll see that.

745
00:42:44.199 --> 00:42:46.480
Let's look at the development of revivalism. Then we will

746
00:42:46.519 --> 00:42:48.679
look at some passages of scripture tonight as we consider

747
00:42:48.760 --> 00:42:53.480
this inner light of scripture, Revivalism began as American phenomenon

748
00:42:53.559 --> 00:42:56.320
during the second grade Awakening. Okay, it's roots come out

749
00:42:56.320 --> 00:42:59.039
of the second grade Awakening. Obviously some of the very

750
00:42:59.039 --> 00:43:00.960
seeds of it come out of the first grade Awakening,

751
00:43:01.199 --> 00:43:03.599
but the second grade Awakening is really the soil for it.

752
00:43:03.639 --> 00:43:08.159
Revivalism was refined and popularized by the ministry of Charles G. Finnie.

753
00:43:08.199 --> 00:43:10.840
Let's look at his background in life. Charles Grandison Finny

754
00:43:10.880 --> 00:43:13.519
was born in Connecticut in seventeen ninety two. He was

755
00:43:13.559 --> 00:43:17.000
the youngest child of a very large family of frontier farmers.

756
00:43:17.599 --> 00:43:20.599
Finny had natural leadership gifts and was quite tall. He

757
00:43:20.679 --> 00:43:23.039
was respected in his community. He did not attend college,

758
00:43:23.039 --> 00:43:25.679
but he read the law as an apprentice to an attorney.

759
00:43:25.719 --> 00:43:27.920
In those days, you didn't become an attorney by going

760
00:43:27.920 --> 00:43:30.280
to law school. You sat under another attorney and read

761
00:43:30.360 --> 00:43:32.199
law with him. He taught you the law, and you

762
00:43:32.280 --> 00:43:34.519
learned to practice from another attorney. You were an apprentice,

763
00:43:34.719 --> 00:43:37.320
and so he learned to read. I don't know that

764
00:43:37.360 --> 00:43:40.360
he practiced law for very long, but he did read

765
00:43:40.400 --> 00:43:43.039
the law and was trained to be an attorney. He

766
00:43:43.079 --> 00:43:46.599
grew up in a Baptist church and participated in revival

767
00:43:46.639 --> 00:43:50.880
services all right, that were holdovers from the first grade awakening.

768
00:43:51.159 --> 00:43:53.360
He claims to have had an experience in which he

769
00:43:53.440 --> 00:43:57.000
was baptized into the Holy Spirit while in Adams, New York,

770
00:43:57.679 --> 00:44:00.000
all right, which I think he points to as his conversion.

771
00:44:01.920 --> 00:44:04.079
Let me say right off, this is a misunderstanding of

772
00:44:04.079 --> 00:44:06.440
the scriptures. The baptism of the Holy Spirit is not

773
00:44:06.519 --> 00:44:10.360
an experience. The baptism of the Holy Spirit is not

774
00:44:10.440 --> 00:44:13.719
an experience. The Bible doesn't command us to be baptized

775
00:44:13.719 --> 00:44:15.519
in the Holy Spirit. It says four we are all

776
00:44:15.599 --> 00:44:19.159
baptized into one body. Doesn't say go seek it. It

777
00:44:19.199 --> 00:44:21.239
tells us we are If you are a Christian, you

778
00:44:21.280 --> 00:44:23.320
have been baptized by the Spirit. What that means is

779
00:44:23.760 --> 00:44:25.639
you have been placed into the body of Christ. You

780
00:44:25.639 --> 00:44:27.760
are part of You are in Christ, You're part of

781
00:44:27.840 --> 00:44:32.800
Christ Church. It's not something you experienced. That's something God did.

782
00:44:33.800 --> 00:44:35.519
Right now, this is really important because this is also

783
00:44:35.559 --> 00:44:39.360
a misunderstanding among Pentecostals and Charismatics, and that is that

784
00:44:39.400 --> 00:44:41.239
you have to seek the baptism of the Holy Spirit.

785
00:44:41.400 --> 00:44:43.679
The Bible never commands that. In fact, the Bible says

786
00:44:44.199 --> 00:44:46.199
and Romans eight nine, if any man have not the

787
00:44:46.199 --> 00:44:48.239
Spirit of Christ, he is none of his. If you

788
00:44:48.239 --> 00:44:50.320
don't have the Holy Spirit in dwelling you, you are

789
00:44:50.360 --> 00:44:54.239
not a believer. That's what Romans eight nine clearly teaches. Okay,

790
00:44:54.280 --> 00:44:55.960
so this idea that you have to somehow seek the

791
00:44:55.960 --> 00:44:58.719
Spirit or sometimes a differentiation will be made. You have

792
00:44:58.760 --> 00:45:00.559
the Spirit in dwelling you, but you don't have the

793
00:45:00.599 --> 00:45:03.119
Spirit's power yet. So you need to be fire baptized,

794
00:45:03.159 --> 00:45:05.199
or you have to have a spirit baptism, a second

795
00:45:05.199 --> 00:45:07.199
work of grace, or something like that, which is completely

796
00:45:07.239 --> 00:45:09.639
foreign to the New Testament. None of those things are there,

797
00:45:10.079 --> 00:45:12.480
but Finni claimed to have this baptism of the spirit.

798
00:45:14.920 --> 00:45:18.360
Interesting, how Finni. You kind of see again some of

799
00:45:18.400 --> 00:45:22.880
the beginnings of the charismatic movement clearly taking shape here.

800
00:45:23.440 --> 00:45:26.800
But again we see Finny already before we even get

801
00:45:26.840 --> 00:45:29.239
to his views on the atonement and substitutionary toonement and

802
00:45:29.239 --> 00:45:32.159
penal substitution. Before we even get to that, we can

803
00:45:32.199 --> 00:45:37.360
see he was already going off the road from biblical

804
00:45:37.480 --> 00:45:40.000
orthodox Christianity. Very early on.

805
00:45:42.800 --> 00:45:46.119
In eighteen twenty one, Fetti studied under George Washington Gail.

806
00:45:46.760 --> 00:45:49.000
Needless to say, George Washington was a popular name for

807
00:45:49.039 --> 00:45:53.519
boys in eighteen twenty one in America to become a

808
00:45:53.559 --> 00:45:59.280
minister in the Presbyterian Church. Okay, Gail, from what I've

809
00:45:59.280 --> 00:46:00.840
read of him, seems to been a pretty good man.

810
00:46:01.480 --> 00:46:04.480
Finny had misgivings about the doctrines of the Presbyterian denomination,

811
00:46:04.559 --> 00:46:08.039
as he records in his memoir, Unexpectedly to myself, they

812
00:46:08.079 --> 00:46:09.960
asked me if I received the Confession of Faith of

813
00:46:10.039 --> 00:46:10.960
Presbyterian Church.

814
00:46:11.480 --> 00:46:13.719
I think that's kind of funny that he thinks it's unexpected.

815
00:46:13.960 --> 00:46:15.840
You're gonna be ordained by the Presbyterians and they're going

816
00:46:15.920 --> 00:46:17.920
to ask you, do you agree with the Westminster Confession.

817
00:46:18.880 --> 00:46:20.199
That's what they believe.

818
00:46:20.679 --> 00:46:24.559
Okay, even today, that's the standard for being ordained as

819
00:46:24.559 --> 00:46:27.400
a Presbyterian minister. Do you agree with the Westminster Confession?

820
00:46:27.800 --> 00:46:30.000
I was teasing. I was at an ordination council on

821
00:46:30.079 --> 00:46:32.360
Friday for a young man who's one of our missionaries,

822
00:46:32.519 --> 00:46:34.039
Ben Michelak, and I.

823
00:46:34.039 --> 00:46:34.599
Was teasing him.

824
00:46:34.599 --> 00:46:36.159
I said, see, if you were Presbyterian, this would be

825
00:46:36.159 --> 00:46:37.960
a lot easier. You wouldn't have to write your own

826
00:46:38.000 --> 00:46:39.920
doctrinal statement and defend it. You could just say I

827
00:46:39.960 --> 00:46:41.599
agree with the Westminster Confession, and.

828
00:46:41.519 --> 00:46:42.119
You'd be good to go.

829
00:46:43.159 --> 00:46:45.840
But and then they might ask you a few questions

830
00:46:45.880 --> 00:46:49.000
to make sure you could defend your ideas. But as Baptists,

831
00:46:49.119 --> 00:46:51.320
we expect people to write up their own doctoral statement.

832
00:46:51.400 --> 00:46:52.480
We read it and we look at it and go,

833
00:46:52.519 --> 00:46:53.239
do we agree with this?

834
00:46:53.840 --> 00:46:55.960
And part of that has to do with our individual soul,

835
00:46:56.000 --> 00:46:57.239
liberty things and some of that.

836
00:46:57.400 --> 00:47:02.519
But so, he said, he was surprise. He said, I

837
00:47:02.559 --> 00:47:03.400
had not examined it.

838
00:47:03.440 --> 00:47:05.239
He must to be ordained as a Presbyterian minister, but

839
00:47:05.239 --> 00:47:08.480
he hadn't read the Confession, that is, the large work

840
00:47:08.519 --> 00:47:12.039
containing the Catechisms and the Presbyterian Confession. This had made

841
00:47:12.039 --> 00:47:14.159
no part of my study. I replied that I received

842
00:47:14.159 --> 00:47:16.000
it for the substance of doctrines so far as I

843
00:47:16.039 --> 00:47:18.199
understood it, which is really.

844
00:47:21.199 --> 00:47:27.440
Clinton asked, I don't know to label that answer. You

845
00:47:27.480 --> 00:47:28.199
know what I'm saying.

846
00:47:28.239 --> 00:47:30.760
I think that's a fair not trying to be political here,

847
00:47:30.760 --> 00:47:32.239
but I think our whole culture knows what it means

848
00:47:32.239 --> 00:47:34.239
if you're trying, if you're answering, like Bill Clinton sometimes

849
00:47:34.239 --> 00:47:35.159
answered things.

850
00:47:36.480 --> 00:47:37.199
Okay, and that.

851
00:47:37.280 --> 00:47:39.360
Is that you answered, and the substance of what you

852
00:47:39.480 --> 00:47:42.599
said was on them face value, somewhat true.

853
00:47:43.159 --> 00:47:46.639
But it really didn't tell the people what they needed.

854
00:47:47.280 --> 00:47:49.239
They couldn't get to the truth through your words, in

855
00:47:49.280 --> 00:47:52.360
other words, in other words, So basically what he said

856
00:47:52.400 --> 00:47:53.960
to this group of men who were going to ordain

857
00:47:54.000 --> 00:47:57.119
him as Apprenticabsterian minister was, as far as I understand

858
00:47:57.119 --> 00:47:58.960
your confession, which he didn't tell them he'd never read,

859
00:47:59.000 --> 00:48:04.000
I agree with it for substance of doctrine. But I

860
00:48:04.079 --> 00:48:06.079
spoke in a way that plainly implied I think that

861
00:48:06.119 --> 00:48:07.920
I did not pretend to know much about it. However,

862
00:48:07.960 --> 00:48:09.840
I answered honestly as I understood.

863
00:48:09.400 --> 00:48:09.920
It at the time.

864
00:48:11.159 --> 00:48:13.119
So basically what he said was I agree with it

865
00:48:13.119 --> 00:48:14.920
as far as I understand it. But the implication was

866
00:48:14.920 --> 00:48:18.920
he didn't know it. And then he later in his

867
00:48:18.960 --> 00:48:21.719
life said, or later in his memoir even says that

868
00:48:21.800 --> 00:48:25.679
he started to read the confession decided he didn't agree

869
00:48:25.679 --> 00:48:28.400
with it at all. Then he used the platform that

870
00:48:28.440 --> 00:48:30.800
he was given as an ordained Presbyterian minister to attack

871
00:48:31.039 --> 00:48:33.800
the Presbyterian Confession. Now, let me ask you what would

872
00:48:33.800 --> 00:48:36.079
be the ethical thing to do there. The ethical thing

873
00:48:36.079 --> 00:48:38.280
to do would be to resign as a Presbyterian minister

874
00:48:38.320 --> 00:48:40.719
and go minister in a denomination you agree with not

875
00:48:41.159 --> 00:48:43.559
to cut down the Presbyterians while you're a Presbyterian minister.

876
00:48:43.679 --> 00:48:44.679
That doesn't make any sense.

877
00:48:46.400 --> 00:48:49.159
Charles Finney became active as an evangelist in Jefferson County,

878
00:48:49.199 --> 00:48:51.920
New York. Jefferson County. From what I understand is over

879
00:48:51.960 --> 00:48:54.599
like in Lake Ontario. I don't know, I don't know

880
00:48:54.840 --> 00:48:55.239
New York.

881
00:48:57.079 --> 00:49:00.320
This is good stuff. You need to go. You need

882
00:49:00.360 --> 00:49:03.800
to find this revivalism and Charles Finni. Download this, download

883
00:49:03.840 --> 00:49:07.440
this down. You're getting some good church history. And we've

884
00:49:07.440 --> 00:49:10.800
already the other message we reviewed just briefly. You know,

885
00:49:10.880 --> 00:49:14.920
Charles Finnie and how Charles Finni shaped America. They talked

886
00:49:14.920 --> 00:49:18.079
about the same thing, about how he basically kind of

887
00:49:18.159 --> 00:49:22.599
lied about the whole thing. Okay, so Charles Finnie is

888
00:49:22.639 --> 00:49:24.960
not being painted in a good light, even before we

889
00:49:25.000 --> 00:49:29.519
get to some of the theology that we know is abhorrent.

890
00:49:31.480 --> 00:49:33.079
Worked well, I looked it up on Google Maps, but

891
00:49:33.159 --> 00:49:35.639
it's over toured Lake Ontario over that way. So this

892
00:49:35.760 --> 00:49:39.599
was definitely frontier in the early eighteen hundreds. Okay, I

893
00:49:39.599 --> 00:49:43.719
think it's still a fairly rural area. During this time,

894
00:49:43.800 --> 00:49:47.119
he applied the revivalistic methods that he was developing. Charles

895
00:49:47.119 --> 00:49:49.079
Finnie moved to New York City in eighteen thirty two

896
00:49:49.400 --> 00:49:52.199
and ministered at the Chatham Street Chapel and introduced some

897
00:49:52.280 --> 00:49:55.199
of his revivalistic methods in the urban setting. Later, he

898
00:49:55.239 --> 00:49:58.360
founded the Broadway Tabernacle in New York, New York, Finny

899
00:49:58.400 --> 00:50:01.679
became active in social reform. He often denounced slavery from

900
00:50:01.679 --> 00:50:04.320
the pulpit and became active in the abolitionist movement in

901
00:50:04.360 --> 00:50:05.159
eighteen thirty five.

902
00:50:07.440 --> 00:50:11.199
Remember the abolitionist movement. Remember I was hesitant there. I

903
00:50:11.199 --> 00:50:13.960
got ready to read the word abolitionist. I was gonna

904
00:50:13.840 --> 00:50:17.679
say I almost mispronounced it, but I stopped myself because

905
00:50:17.760 --> 00:50:19.360
I was like, are we sure? So I went and

906
00:50:19.400 --> 00:50:22.679
looked it up. Abolitionist? Okay, yeah, And that is so

907
00:50:23.320 --> 00:50:25.760
this is a second confirmation, because when I first heard it,

908
00:50:25.800 --> 00:50:27.800
I'm like, well, did he was he an abolitionist? Did

909
00:50:27.840 --> 00:50:30.079
he did he want to abolish? I was going to

910
00:50:30.119 --> 00:50:34.760
say abolitionists, but abolitionists if I'm saying it correctly. I

911
00:50:34.880 --> 00:50:37.679
was like, okay, that that seems to be correct. So

912
00:50:37.920 --> 00:50:41.000
we've got two sources that confirms it was an abolitionist

913
00:50:41.000 --> 00:50:43.280
and he wanted to get rid of slavery. Now we've

914
00:50:43.320 --> 00:50:47.559
got to remember, Hey, this is how human beings are.

915
00:50:47.320 --> 00:50:51.599
We're complicated people, right, Sometimes there's good, sometimes there's bad.

916
00:50:51.840 --> 00:50:55.719
There's a lot of the social things he did the

917
00:50:55.800 --> 00:50:59.440
abolitionist movement, trying to get rid of slavery, his college

918
00:50:59.480 --> 00:51:01.719
allowing I think one of the first colleges to allow

919
00:51:01.760 --> 00:51:04.800
African Americans and let women. There was a lot of

920
00:51:04.840 --> 00:51:08.679
these social things he did that were good, and we

921
00:51:08.760 --> 00:51:11.519
cannot deny that they were good, all right.

922
00:51:13.480 --> 00:51:17.239
Became a faculty member at Oberlin College in Ohio. Oberlin

923
00:51:17.360 --> 00:51:19.400
was the first college in America to accept women and

924
00:51:19.480 --> 00:51:23.519
black students alongside white male students. There's a reason he

925
00:51:23.519 --> 00:51:27.039
went to Oberlin, and it's because of his social activism.

926
00:51:27.679 --> 00:51:28.519
It appealed to him.

927
00:51:29.199 --> 00:51:30.920
And I'm not saying that Oberlin was a negative place.

928
00:51:30.920 --> 00:51:32.599
I'm just saying it appealed to Finny. Finny became the

929
00:51:32.599 --> 00:51:36.119
president of the college in eighteen fifty one. Oberlin College

930
00:51:36.119 --> 00:51:39.280
in the town worked to help fugitive slaves to the

931
00:51:39.360 --> 00:51:43.920
underground railroad and to fight the Fugitive Slave Act to

932
00:51:43.960 --> 00:51:47.199
oppose it. Finny was also active in the anti Masonic movement.

933
00:51:47.480 --> 00:51:49.519
He was a Mason in his early life, but he

934
00:51:49.599 --> 00:51:55.000
rejected it as being anti Christian. And now let me

935
00:51:55.039 --> 00:51:56.519
say this, I don't know if anybody in our church

936
00:51:56.559 --> 00:51:58.400
is a Mason. I'm not sure our constitution says anything

937
00:51:58.440 --> 00:52:03.039
about it. But the basic tenets of of Masonry, of

938
00:52:03.079 --> 00:52:08.599
the Masonic group are antithetical to Biblical Christianity. However, I

939
00:52:08.599 --> 00:52:09.960
think there are a lot of people who are Masons

940
00:52:09.960 --> 00:52:12.440
that don't know what the Masons think. It's just a

941
00:52:12.480 --> 00:52:14.639
social gathering for many people, like the Elks club down

942
00:52:14.679 --> 00:52:16.719
the street or something like that, and they don't really

943
00:52:16.760 --> 00:52:18.360
think of it as a theological thing. They think of

944
00:52:18.400 --> 00:52:20.519
it more as a social club. And so I do

945
00:52:20.559 --> 00:52:23.760
recognize there are good Christian people who are Masons. The

946
00:52:23.760 --> 00:52:25.559
issue that you sometimes have, though, is that you have

947
00:52:25.599 --> 00:52:28.360
to take these secret oaths and it'd be very hard,

948
00:52:28.440 --> 00:52:30.960
I think as a local church for us, and we've

949
00:52:31.000 --> 00:52:33.599
never excluded anybody for this, but I think we'd have

950
00:52:33.599 --> 00:52:35.639
at tension here, and that is if we have a

951
00:52:35.639 --> 00:52:38.559
responsibility for somebody spiritually, but yet they have secret beliefs

952
00:52:38.599 --> 00:52:40.840
that we can never know. That would be difficult for

953
00:52:40.920 --> 00:52:43.079
us to have, you know, provoke one another eleven good

954
00:52:43.079 --> 00:52:44.920
works because you've got a secret society you're a member of,

955
00:52:45.239 --> 00:52:47.639
which makes things a little more difficult. I think Finny

956
00:52:47.760 --> 00:52:50.159
was right on some of these issues. He was probably

957
00:52:50.280 --> 00:52:53.000
right on some of his concerns with the Masonic group,

958
00:52:53.119 --> 00:52:54.239
Masonic Lodge, and those.

959
00:52:54.119 --> 00:52:54.639
Kinds of things.

960
00:52:55.039 --> 00:52:57.519
In his personal life, Charles Finny was a widow or

961
00:52:57.559 --> 00:53:00.679
twice and was married three times, so he had two

962
00:53:00.719 --> 00:53:06.079
wives die and remarried for a third time. Charles Finni's theology,

963
00:53:06.159 --> 00:53:09.679
let's consider Phini's theology. Despite the fact that Charles Finny

964
00:53:09.760 --> 00:53:13.280
was ordained by the Presbyterian denomination, he rejected the theology

965
00:53:13.320 --> 00:53:16.800
of Presbyterianism. However, his rejection was not a rejection in

966
00:53:16.800 --> 00:53:20.480
favor of Baptist theology, but rather his own revivalistic theology.

967
00:53:20.519 --> 00:53:22.280
Finny stated, as soon.

968
00:53:22.079 --> 00:53:24.559
As I learned what were the unambiguous teachings of the

969
00:53:24.559 --> 00:53:27.079
Confession of Faith upon these points he's talking about the

970
00:53:27.119 --> 00:53:30.639
Westminster Confession, I did not hesitate at all, on all

971
00:53:30.679 --> 00:53:34.480
suitable occasions declare my descent from them. I repudiated and

972
00:53:34.559 --> 00:53:37.079
exposed them. Wherever I found that any class of persons

973
00:53:37.079 --> 00:53:40.480
were hidden behind these dogmas, I did not hesitate to

974
00:53:40.480 --> 00:53:43.239
demolish them. To the best of my ability, so he

975
00:53:43.320 --> 00:53:47.360
said and his own memoirs that he attacked as a

976
00:53:47.400 --> 00:53:50.880
Presbyterian minister, attacked the Westminster Confession, which is again questionable

977
00:53:50.880 --> 00:53:53.239
in my mind. Not that I think the Westminster Confession

978
00:53:53.280 --> 00:53:56.000
is right on every point. I just think that obviously

979
00:53:56.039 --> 00:53:58.360
I'm a Baptist, not a Presbyterian, but I think that

980
00:53:58.400 --> 00:54:01.199
it's on ethical to be a Prisonitarian minister and attack

981
00:54:01.400 --> 00:54:04.920
the confession of faith of the Presbyterian denomination. Again, find

982
00:54:04.920 --> 00:54:08.000
it another denomination to become a part of Phinea's viewser

983
00:54:08.000 --> 00:54:11.199
probably a reaction to the hyper Calvinism that was going

984
00:54:11.239 --> 00:54:13.800
on in New England in Finney's day, and it contributed

985
00:54:13.840 --> 00:54:16.400
to the dead spiritual atmosphere that provided fertile ground to

986
00:54:16.400 --> 00:54:20.119
Phinney's teachings. So a form of Hypercalvinism had been spreading.

987
00:54:20.199 --> 00:54:25.480
Hypercalvinism is the belief that humans don't have a responsibility basically,

988
00:54:26.000 --> 00:54:29.480
and that especially that it's inappropriate to use human means

989
00:54:29.840 --> 00:54:33.920
to spread the Gospel. So Hypercalvinists are generally against missions,

990
00:54:34.000 --> 00:54:35.920
organizations and those kinds of things, and it depends on

991
00:54:35.920 --> 00:54:39.159
the level of the hyper Calvinist. A friend of mine

992
00:54:39.320 --> 00:54:44.679
relates that he was talking to a man one time,

993
00:54:44.719 --> 00:54:47.159
and the man could preach the gospel to him, but

994
00:54:47.199 --> 00:54:50.360
the man said, you know, I cannot believe the gospel

995
00:54:50.400 --> 00:54:55.360
because I'm not elect and that because therefore so therefore

996
00:54:55.480 --> 00:54:57.119
I can't believe it.

997
00:54:57.159 --> 00:54:58.000
I haven't been elected.

998
00:54:58.199 --> 00:55:00.400
How this man knew this, I don't know, because it

999
00:55:00.400 --> 00:55:02.840
seems to me that the commands to believe in repent

1000
00:55:02.840 --> 00:55:05.679
her commands. And it seems like this was an excuse

1001
00:55:05.760 --> 00:55:07.480
not to believe the gospel to me, and that the

1002
00:55:07.480 --> 00:55:10.800
man believed that until somebody believed it was inappropriate, until

1003
00:55:10.800 --> 00:55:13.039
they were regenerated, it was inappropriate for you to preach

1004
00:55:13.079 --> 00:55:17.000
the gospel to them. That's an excessive kind of hypercalvinism.

1005
00:55:17.039 --> 00:55:19.159
So some of these kind of bizarre ideas were going

1006
00:55:19.159 --> 00:55:23.199
on in Finny's area, and some of his ideas are

1007
00:55:23.400 --> 00:55:27.440
over reactions to this. Finney's aberran views one of Phinney's

1008
00:55:27.440 --> 00:55:30.840
most significant doctrinal heresies. And I'm not using these words lightly.

1009
00:55:30.920 --> 00:55:32.920
Let me say this, I am not using these words lightly.

1010
00:55:33.000 --> 00:55:34.000
I do believe, and.

1011
00:55:34.000 --> 00:55:36.119
I'm going to say in my conclusion that Charles Finny

1012
00:55:36.159 --> 00:55:40.920
was a false teacher. One of his most significant doctrinal

1013
00:55:40.960 --> 00:55:47.440
heresies was his false teaching regarding justification. He denied that

1014
00:55:47.519 --> 00:55:50.199
Christ's righteousness is the sole ground of our justification.

1015
00:55:54.480 --> 00:55:58.239
Wow, so if this is correct, Charles Finny denied then

1016
00:55:58.320 --> 00:56:05.599
that we are saved by himputed righteousness. Now, I will

1017
00:56:05.679 --> 00:56:07.840
argue that you have a lot of evangelicals today who

1018
00:56:07.920 --> 00:56:10.639
say they save, we're saved by imputed righteousness, and then

1019
00:56:10.800 --> 00:56:17.039
and then just maybe inadvertently, inevitably, whatever you want to

1020
00:56:17.079 --> 00:56:20.760
describe it. They almost turn into a workspace system, whether

1021
00:56:20.800 --> 00:56:23.800
they like it or not, because people are works based

1022
00:56:24.079 --> 00:56:28.760
by nature. But Finny seems to deny justification based off

1023
00:56:28.800 --> 00:56:32.679
in imputed righteousness. We've already determined he wasn't a Christian,

1024
00:56:32.719 --> 00:56:36.719
he wasn't saved, and this would be further support of that.

1025
00:56:39.360 --> 00:56:41.719
He denied that christ righteousness is the sole ground of

1026
00:56:41.719 --> 00:56:44.440
our justification. Finny wrote, I could not but regard and

1027
00:56:44.480 --> 00:56:47.480
treat this whole question of imputation, in other words, that

1028
00:56:47.599 --> 00:56:50.400
Jesus righteousness is imputed to us by faith as a

1029
00:56:50.440 --> 00:56:53.679
theological fiction somewhat related to our legal fiction of John

1030
00:56:53.719 --> 00:56:55.719
Doe and Richard Rowe. I'm not sure really what he's

1031
00:56:55.760 --> 00:56:59.800
referring to legally there, but what he's doing is he's

1032
00:56:59.800 --> 00:57:03.519
taught talking about the imputation of Christ righteousness and justification

1033
00:57:03.719 --> 00:57:07.760
as a theological fiction. This is a serious error that

1034
00:57:07.760 --> 00:57:10.800
attacks the very heart I'm saying this, the very heart

1035
00:57:10.840 --> 00:57:13.719
of sola fide. Sola fide comes from the Reformation, and

1036
00:57:13.719 --> 00:57:16.559
it means faith alone. In other words, how are you justified?

1037
00:57:17.400 --> 00:57:19.639
You believe in Christ, You're justified by faith alone, not

1038
00:57:19.679 --> 00:57:22.440
faith plus works. Well, then how do you have righteousness?

1039
00:57:22.440 --> 00:57:25.760
Because Jesus was righteous and God imputes that righteousness to you.

1040
00:57:26.320 --> 00:57:30.719
That's a very important doctrine. This undermines justification by faith alone.

1041
00:57:31.119 --> 00:57:34.480
What he's saying here. Finni instead taught that sinners needed

1042
00:57:34.519 --> 00:57:37.360
not only Christ's obedient life known as this, not only

1043
00:57:37.599 --> 00:57:41.159
Christ's obedient life and death for justification, but also their own.

1044
00:57:41.519 --> 00:57:44.639
That a person's continued obedience was a condition for justification.

1045
00:57:47.519 --> 00:57:51.960
People's obedience is a conditional requirement for justification. Now, many

1046
00:57:52.039 --> 00:57:54.320
Christians will not say what Phinni said. They will not

1047
00:57:54.360 --> 00:57:57.679
say it's a conditional requirement for justification. But what they

1048
00:57:57.719 --> 00:58:02.079
will say is, just if you are justified by imputed righteousness,

1049
00:58:02.159 --> 00:58:03.960
you will prove it by doing this, this, and this,

1050
00:58:04.039 --> 00:58:06.920
and if you don't do this, therefore you are never justified,

1051
00:58:07.159 --> 00:58:09.800
meaning you have to do it in order to be justified. Well,

1052
00:58:09.840 --> 00:58:12.599
the minute you say you have to do something to

1053
00:58:12.679 --> 00:58:17.559
prove that you're justified, you're denying justification by an imputed righteousness.

1054
00:58:17.639 --> 00:58:20.400
This is what I'm always yelling about. So many people

1055
00:58:20.480 --> 00:58:24.119
condemn Finny, but they really teach the same thing. They

1056
00:58:24.199 --> 00:58:27.760
just use they play little games with language. Well, I'm

1057
00:58:27.800 --> 00:58:30.840
not saying it's a requirement for justification. I'm just saying

1058
00:58:30.880 --> 00:58:33.480
that if you're justified, you will do this and this

1059
00:58:33.559 --> 00:58:35.760
and this, and if you don't, you are never justified,

1060
00:58:36.039 --> 00:58:38.320
which you just then mean I have to do it

1061
00:58:38.360 --> 00:58:41.519
in order to be justified. If you make any requirement

1062
00:58:41.719 --> 00:58:46.280
of doing anything in order to be saved, prove save anything,

1063
00:58:46.519 --> 00:58:50.159
then you've destroyed justification by an imputed righteousness. Imputed means

1064
00:58:50.320 --> 00:58:54.119
it's simply God's righteousness accredited to my account doesn't make

1065
00:58:54.159 --> 00:58:56.920
me righteous. It declares me to be what I am not.

1066
00:59:03.239 --> 00:59:04.880
In other words, not only do you have to respond

1067
00:59:04.880 --> 00:59:06.599
and repent in faith to Jesus, but you have to

1068
00:59:06.679 --> 00:59:08.960
keep obeying God, and if you don't, you will not

1069
00:59:09.039 --> 00:59:14.440
be finally justified, declared righteous by God. But let's compare

1070
00:59:14.440 --> 00:59:17.239
this to a few passages of scripture. John three, verse

1071
00:59:17.280 --> 00:59:22.880
eighteen Finny was really wrong here, and that's why I

1072
00:59:22.880 --> 00:59:24.239
say this is a serious false teaching.

1073
00:59:26.679 --> 00:59:29.679
I will go further. He wouldn't just really wrong. He

1074
00:59:29.840 --> 00:59:32.760
was straight up poetical teaching a false gospel. He did

1075
00:59:32.800 --> 00:59:35.880
not he was denying Christianity, and he was teaching a

1076
00:59:35.960 --> 00:59:38.079
counter Christianity in its place.

1077
00:59:48.400 --> 00:59:50.760
John three eighteen says, he that believeth on Him, that

1078
00:59:50.880 --> 00:59:52.679
is on Jesus, is not condemned.

1079
00:59:54.119 --> 00:59:55.000
So let me ask this.

1080
00:59:55.239 --> 00:59:58.159
If you have to obey in order to be justified,

1081
00:59:58.440 --> 01:00:00.400
how can you, the person who believes on him, not

1082
01:00:00.440 --> 01:00:03.119
be condemned. So that's the point. Once you come and

1083
01:00:03.159 --> 01:00:07.039
repentant faith, true saving faith to Jesus Christ, you're not condemned.

1084
01:00:07.199 --> 01:00:09.159
But the one that believes not is condemned already. There's

1085
01:00:09.159 --> 01:00:12.760
only two states. You either are justified or you're condemned.

1086
01:00:16.119 --> 01:00:19.800
And you're justified or condemned on the basis of faith,

1087
01:00:20.159 --> 01:00:24.119
not on what you do, will do, should do, could do,

1088
01:00:24.440 --> 01:00:27.079
may do. Has nothing to do with what you do,

1089
01:00:27.400 --> 01:00:30.480
and has everything to do with what Christ did. Your

1090
01:00:30.480 --> 01:00:33.239
salvation is not it doesn't have anything with what you do.

1091
01:00:33.440 --> 01:00:35.440
It's everything what he did, and people say, well, there's

1092
01:00:35.480 --> 01:00:38.000
a test. Well, whatever tests you give me to prove

1093
01:00:38.039 --> 01:00:39.840
my faith, I'm going to give it to Jesus. And

1094
01:00:39.920 --> 01:00:42.599
Jesus is going to say I did all of these things.

1095
01:00:42.719 --> 01:00:45.599
I've passed your tests. Leave him alone. I'm the one

1096
01:00:45.639 --> 01:00:50.079
who justifies. You cannot lay charge to anyone whom I've justified.

1097
01:00:50.199 --> 01:00:53.199
God is the justifier. You can't charge anything to the

1098
01:00:53.239 --> 01:00:56.159
elect because they've been saved by God. They've been justified

1099
01:00:56.239 --> 01:01:04.719
by God by an imputed righteousness.

1100
01:01:06.119 --> 01:01:09.159
Because that because he's condemned already, because he hath not

1101
01:01:09.199 --> 01:01:10.920
believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.

1102
01:01:11.000 --> 01:01:20.400
Let's ak at giant John five twenty five. Verily, verily,

1103
01:01:20.440 --> 01:01:22.280
I say unto you, the hour is coming, and now

1104
01:01:22.360 --> 01:01:24.000
is when the dead shall hear the voice of the

1105
01:01:24.000 --> 01:01:28.480
Son of God, and they that here shall live. So

1106
01:01:28.559 --> 01:01:30.719
are you spiritually alive when you hear the gospel and

1107
01:01:30.719 --> 01:01:50.119
respond to it absolutely Galatians three thirteen. Galatians three thirteen

1108
01:01:50.159 --> 01:01:52.480
says Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the

1109
01:01:52.559 --> 01:01:58.119
law being made a curse for us. Here's imputation our

1110
01:01:58.360 --> 01:02:01.840
alien guilt. It was alien him, it was not his,

1111
01:02:02.360 --> 01:02:06.119
our guilt was laid on him and his alien righteousness.

1112
01:02:06.119 --> 01:02:08.239
It was not native to us, it was alien to us,

1113
01:02:08.480 --> 01:02:14.039
is credited to us. Christ hath redeemed us from the

1114
01:02:14.079 --> 01:02:16.840
curse of the law being made a curse for us,

1115
01:02:17.000 --> 01:02:19.079
for it is written, cursed is everyone that hangeth on

1116
01:02:19.119 --> 01:02:24.559
a tree Jesus. The way justification works is that he

1117
01:02:24.679 --> 01:02:27.079
bore our sins and his body on that tree, and

1118
01:02:27.159 --> 01:02:30.239
his righteousness is credited to us because it's not we need.

1119
01:02:30.199 --> 01:02:31.400
Righteousness and we don't have it.

1120
01:02:32.400 --> 01:02:34.639
We could go to Romans three and see something very similar.

1121
01:02:35.119 --> 01:02:37.760
That God might be just and the justifier of the

1122
01:02:37.760 --> 01:02:40.320
one that believes in Jesus. How does God maintain his

1123
01:02:40.559 --> 01:02:44.159
justice toward people who are who are legitimately sinners? And

1124
01:02:44.199 --> 01:02:49.360
that is because Jesus died in our place. Here we

1125
01:02:49.440 --> 01:02:55.320
have a quote from Charles Finney's Systematic Theology. By sanctification

1126
01:02:55.679 --> 01:02:58.800
being a condition of justification, the following things are intended.

1127
01:02:59.119 --> 01:03:02.280
He says sanctification is a condition of justification.

1128
01:03:04.719 --> 01:03:09.199
Saying sanctification is a condition of justification. I'm sorry they're

1129
01:03:09.280 --> 01:03:11.599
Christians who believe that. They would say they don't, but

1130
01:03:11.639 --> 01:03:14.079
they do. They do that. How do they judge your

1131
01:03:14.360 --> 01:03:18.119
justification by your sanctification. If you are not scan they

1132
01:03:18.159 --> 01:03:20.760
will say, if you are not sanctified and you have

1133
01:03:20.840 --> 01:03:26.199
never been justified, sanctification proves your justification. God will sanctify

1134
01:03:26.320 --> 01:03:29.679
those whom He justifies, So then your justification is dependent

1135
01:03:29.760 --> 01:03:32.960
upon sanctification. No sanctification, you prove you were never saved.

1136
01:03:33.239 --> 01:03:37.719
It's the same thing Finny was teaching, we just worded differently.

1137
01:03:38.159 --> 01:03:42.199
I reject Finny's version, and I reject the version taught

1138
01:03:42.199 --> 01:03:46.519
by many Christians today. My justification is not judge. My

1139
01:03:46.719 --> 01:03:50.559
justification is not judged by my sanctification. My justification is

1140
01:03:50.599 --> 01:03:53.960
not dependent upon my sanctification. My sanctification is separate from

1141
01:03:54.000 --> 01:03:56.840
my justification. My justification has nothing to do with what

1142
01:03:56.880 --> 01:03:59.519
happens to me will do. It is all a what

1143
01:03:59.760 --> 01:04:04.119
crist Christ did. My justification solely rest on what Christ did,

1144
01:04:04.480 --> 01:04:08.880
not what happens to me at all in me at

1145
01:04:08.920 --> 01:04:11.920
nothing about that. My sanctification has nothing to do with

1146
01:04:11.960 --> 01:04:15.000
my justification. We have to make them distinct. If we

1147
01:04:15.119 --> 01:04:18.679
blend them together, we basically then we have a justification

1148
01:04:18.719 --> 01:04:22.599
based off infused righteousness, and then our sanctification. Well, you

1149
01:04:22.679 --> 01:04:23.840
almost end up back to.

1150
01:04:23.840 --> 01:04:30.679
Catholicism, sanctification is that process by which, this is how

1151
01:04:30.719 --> 01:04:32.559
we normally define it, the process by which we're made

1152
01:04:32.599 --> 01:04:36.119
more like Christ. Okay, in our walk, we're all experiencing,

1153
01:04:36.119 --> 01:04:39.639
if we're believers right now, experiencing sanctification. Some are at

1154
01:04:39.639 --> 01:04:43.599
further levels in that walk, but we're all experiencing sanctification.

1155
01:04:45.280 --> 01:04:48.079
But he's saying, it's a condition of justification, that present,

1156
01:04:48.199 --> 01:04:50.840
full and entire consecration of heart and life to God

1157
01:04:50.880 --> 01:04:53.920
and his service is an unalterable condition of the present

1158
01:04:53.960 --> 01:04:56.800
pardon of past sin and of present acceptance with God,

1159
01:04:57.360 --> 01:05:00.440
that the penitent soul remains justified. No law than this

1160
01:05:00.480 --> 01:05:05.800
full hearted consecration continues. Another your justification ends if you

1161
01:05:05.800 --> 01:05:13.599
don't continue in full hearted consecration to God's.

1162
01:05:12.599 --> 01:05:16.480
And the game we play is not that your justification ends.

1163
01:05:16.679 --> 01:05:19.480
We come around and say you were never justified. So

1164
01:05:19.639 --> 01:05:23.199
that's the game we play. See Fanny said your justification ends,

1165
01:05:23.199 --> 01:05:26.280
and we just say, well, it never started, you were

1166
01:05:26.280 --> 01:05:32.039
never justified. We play the exact same game. Fanny wasn't

1167
01:05:32.079 --> 01:05:36.400
saying something that's not present everywhere within evangelicalism today. Well,

1168
01:05:36.559 --> 01:05:38.079
if you don't do this, you don't do this, you

1169
01:05:38.119 --> 01:05:44.440
don't do that, you were never saved. Okay, it's it's

1170
01:05:45.480 --> 01:05:46.920
but bo. We're not saying you have to do it

1171
01:05:46.920 --> 01:05:48.840
in order to be saved, but we're just saying if

1172
01:05:48.840 --> 01:05:50.599
you don't do it, you were never saved, meaning I

1173
01:05:50.679 --> 01:05:53.199
have to do it. You're just playing semantics.

1174
01:05:55.079 --> 01:05:56.039
It's false teaching.

1175
01:05:59.480 --> 01:06:01.280
If he falls from his first love into the spirit

1176
01:06:01.360 --> 01:06:03.400
of self pleasing, he falls again into a bond descent

1177
01:06:03.480 --> 01:06:06.440
into the law, is condemned and must repent and do

1178
01:06:06.519 --> 01:06:08.920
his first work, must turn to Christ and renew his

1179
01:06:08.920 --> 01:06:11.320
faith and love as a condition of his salvation. What

1180
01:06:11.360 --> 01:06:13.280
this means is he believes you could be justified then

1181
01:06:13.320 --> 01:06:17.360
no longer justified than renew that and be justified again. Okay,

1182
01:06:17.400 --> 01:06:20.400
that's false teaching, and this doesn't come to the level

1183
01:06:20.519 --> 01:06:22.159
there are people out there who believe you can lose

1184
01:06:22.159 --> 01:06:26.800
your salvation. That's not merely what he's saying here. He's

1185
01:06:26.840 --> 01:06:29.599
actually attacking the very basis of our salvation.

1186
01:06:31.039 --> 01:06:31.599
Okay, there are.

1187
01:06:31.519 --> 01:06:35.800
People who believe Jesus' death and righteous life are the

1188
01:06:35.800 --> 01:06:39.119
basis for our justification. But yet they believe that some

1189
01:06:39.159 --> 01:06:42.519
people can apostatize who had already believed and lose their salvation.

1190
01:06:43.159 --> 01:06:44.280
All right, I don't believe that.

1191
01:06:44.440 --> 01:06:46.880
But that's not the same level of error is saying

1192
01:06:46.920 --> 01:06:49.880
that Jesus death and righteous life are not the basis

1193
01:06:49.920 --> 01:06:53.280
of our justification. Do you see the difference. That's a

1194
01:06:53.360 --> 01:06:57.199
huge difference. Second false teaching of Charles Finny. The necessary

1195
01:06:57.239 --> 01:07:01.559
implication of Finney's rejection of judicial justiceification by judicial what

1196
01:07:01.599 --> 01:07:04.360
I mean is when God declares us righteous on the

1197
01:07:04.360 --> 01:07:11.000
basis of jesus righteousness, Are we actually righteous? No, Jesus is,

1198
01:07:11.159 --> 01:07:13.760
but his righteousness is imputed, is credited to us, and

1199
01:07:13.840 --> 01:07:15.760
so therefore God declares us righteous.

1200
01:07:15.760 --> 01:07:18.199
By judicial what I mean is in God's law court.

1201
01:07:18.239 --> 01:07:23.199
In other words, So, for example, do we understand this

1202
01:07:23.239 --> 01:07:26.119
a little bit? I think something like a marriage would

1203
01:07:26.119 --> 01:07:28.199
be something like this. So when you go many of

1204
01:07:28.199 --> 01:07:30.719
you are married, some of you hope to be someday.

1205
01:07:32.119 --> 01:07:36.079
When you go to the pastor or the justice of

1206
01:07:36.079 --> 01:07:39.000
the peace or whatever, and you get married, what changes

1207
01:07:39.039 --> 01:07:41.880
about your nature when you get married? When the person

1208
01:07:41.880 --> 01:07:43.960
says I pronounce you man and wife, what changes about

1209
01:07:44.000 --> 01:07:46.639
your nature? Do you become a different person?

1210
01:07:47.599 --> 01:07:47.679
No?

1211
01:07:48.960 --> 01:07:52.199
Sometimes your spouse might wish you had, but you don't.

1212
01:07:52.639 --> 01:07:52.800
Right.

1213
01:07:53.679 --> 01:07:55.199
What happens is your state changes.

1214
01:07:55.239 --> 01:08:01.199
The government now declares you married, your judicial legal standing

1215
01:08:01.280 --> 01:08:04.039
is different because you're now no longer single, but you're married,

1216
01:08:04.199 --> 01:08:07.039
and so that means in legal settings there are various

1217
01:08:08.159 --> 01:08:11.920
situations in which you're gonna be treated differently because you're married,

1218
01:08:13.159 --> 01:08:16.680
all right, that your spouse is gonna be partner with

1219
01:08:16.760 --> 01:08:21.319
you in things. And so that's an illustration over simplistic illustration,

1220
01:08:21.399 --> 01:08:24.920
but a illustration of the fact that God has judicially

1221
01:08:24.960 --> 01:08:27.279
declared us righteous, not because we're actually righteous, but on

1222
01:08:27.279 --> 01:08:33.000
the basis of Jesus righteousness and his judicial justification. Because

1223
01:08:33.000 --> 01:08:36.760
he rejected this, he also rejected what we call the

1224
01:08:36.800 --> 01:08:39.680
penal satisfaction view of the Atonement, that is that Jesus

1225
01:08:40.239 --> 01:08:42.800
daff paid the penalty that satisfied God for sin.

1226
01:08:45.039 --> 01:08:48.479
Now, what he's describing again is the idea of our

1227
01:08:48.560 --> 01:08:53.560
positional standing for God with God because of christ imputed righteousness. Positionally,

1228
01:08:53.600 --> 01:08:55.600
I'm a new creature. Old has passed away, all things

1229
01:08:55.640 --> 01:08:58.760
have become new. Practically, I'm not new. I'm still old.

1230
01:08:58.840 --> 01:09:02.279
I'm still a sinner. Thing has changed. Justification does not

1231
01:09:02.479 --> 01:09:08.159
change me practically. It changes me positionally, does not change

1232
01:09:08.199 --> 01:09:11.119
my nature. And I know that goes against much of

1233
01:09:11.199 --> 01:09:14.239
evangelicalism teaching because they're like, no, no, no, no, you have

1234
01:09:14.239 --> 01:09:15.640
to change. You have to change, you have to change.

1235
01:09:15.680 --> 01:09:17.960
And if you don't change enough, you were never saved. Well,

1236
01:09:17.960 --> 01:09:19.560
then that means you don't believe I was saved by

1237
01:09:19.560 --> 01:09:21.720
an imputed righteousness. You believe I was saved by an

1238
01:09:21.720 --> 01:09:24.720
infused righteousness. Not only was this a problem of Finny,

1239
01:09:24.880 --> 01:09:28.960
it's a problem of modern evangelicalism. It is everywhere. There's

1240
01:09:28.960 --> 01:09:32.399
a high probability it's in your church as we speak.

1241
01:09:33.399 --> 01:09:37.720
And then he goes on to say, Finny, deny penal substitution.

1242
01:09:40.239 --> 01:09:42.640
Now I'll stop there because we're sixty nine minutes. You

1243
01:09:42.680 --> 01:09:44.840
need to go listen to the rest of that. Revivalism

1244
01:09:45.039 --> 01:09:50.800
and Charles Finny revivalism and Charles Finny revivalism and Charles Finny.

1245
01:09:51.399 --> 01:09:53.079
Hang on, let me pull up the name of the church.

1246
01:09:53.199 --> 01:09:56.199
I think it's Calvary Baptist. Let me pull it up

1247
01:09:56.239 --> 01:10:03.920
here Revivalism and Charles fin Our Baptist Heritage, Calvary Baptist Church.

1248
01:10:04.359 --> 01:10:06.920
Please look it up, please find it. Please listen to

1249
01:10:06.920 --> 01:10:09.399
the rest of it. I implore you to do so.

1250
01:10:09.960 --> 01:10:12.600
A lot of times our reviews lead me utterly frustrated

1251
01:10:12.600 --> 01:10:15.359
and irritated. This one is a pleasure to listen to.

1252
01:10:15.680 --> 01:10:18.680
This one is great. I only wanted to go about

1253
01:10:18.720 --> 01:10:21.640
thirty minutes on this. We've gone seventy minutes because this

1254
01:10:21.720 --> 01:10:24.399
is one of those that's absolutely awesome. We've heard a

1255
01:10:24.399 --> 01:10:27.760
lot the last review we did on Charles Finney also,

1256
01:10:27.760 --> 01:10:29.560
even though at first I was a little bit more

1257
01:10:29.760 --> 01:10:33.359
opposed to it, again they did a great job. So

1258
01:10:33.399 --> 01:10:36.199
we're hearing some really good stuff and that's always positive.

1259
01:10:36.359 --> 01:10:38.720
I like when the reviews turn out more positive. I

1260
01:10:38.720 --> 01:10:40.920
never intend them to be negative, but you never know

1261
01:10:40.960 --> 01:10:43.520
what's going to happen. But I'll stop right there because

1262
01:10:43.520 --> 01:10:46.079
now it's about one hundred and forty seven degrees inside

1263
01:10:46.119 --> 01:10:49.159
the studio, so yeah, here in West Texas, about one

1264
01:10:49.239 --> 01:10:52.399
hundred and twelve degrees currently outside. And when I broadcast

1265
01:10:52.439 --> 01:10:54.800
have to turn off the AC unit because well, it

1266
01:10:54.880 --> 01:10:56.560
makes a lot of noise. And when I do that,

1267
01:10:57.000 --> 01:11:01.680
who it gets high to stop right there. That's some

1268
01:11:01.720 --> 01:11:03.560
good stuff. That's some good stuff. We're off to a

1269
01:11:03.600 --> 01:11:05.800
good start. We're off to a good start in our

1270
01:11:05.800 --> 01:11:08.960
look at Charles Finny. That's some good stuff. So please

1271
01:11:09.039 --> 01:11:12.000
go listen to the rest of that, please go go

1272
01:11:12.199 --> 01:11:14.159
listen to the rest of that. All right, Thanks for

1273
01:11:14.239 --> 01:11:17.399
listening everyone, have a great day, a great couple of

1274
01:11:17.479 --> 01:11:21.000
days focusing on Charles Finny and let's remember our ignorance

1275
01:11:21.039 --> 01:11:23.520
of the past does not negate its influence on us

1276
01:11:23.640 --> 01:11:26.359
in the present. Thanks for listening. God bless