Aug. 22, 2024

Charles Finney Challenge Pt 1

Charles Finney Challenge Pt 1

The first review in our Charles Finney challenge

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The first review in our Charles Finney challenge

WEBVTT

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Looking at our world from a theological perspective.

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This is the Theology Central podcast making Theology Central.

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Good afternoon, everyone. It is Thursday, August the twenty second,

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twenty twenty four. It is currently two thirty six pm

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Central Time, and I am coming to you live from

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the Theology Central Studio located right here in Abilene, Texas.

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And all I can say right now is, if you

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have ever thought about coming to Abilene, Texas, just perish

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the thought right now. Get rid of that thought. If

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you're driving a car right now and you're headed towards Abilene, Texas,

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turn the car around. Save yourselves. Forget about us. Just

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save yourselves. You do not want to come to Abilene, Texas.

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Yesterday we broke a record. We had one hundred and

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thirteen degrees and now they're warning us it's going to

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be about one hundred in twelve, maybe within the next

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hour or so. We have, like you know, all kinds

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of weather heat warnings and advisories. Basically, don't go outside

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or you'll, you know, you will burst into flames. It

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is hot outside. And not only is it hot outside,

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we're here at the Theology Central Studio, the central cooling

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unit well started having some problems yesterday. We still need

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to get someone out to kind of, do you know,

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just kind of a maintenance check and make sure everything

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is working correctly. It's hard to know is there a

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real problem or things were just cutting off because things

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were overheating because it was one hundred and thirteen degrees outside.

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Well at this point, I think it's about one eight,

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one o eight, one oh nine right now, maybe one ten,

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and I'm not I don't. I think things are still

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working okay. But you know, either way, even with the

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central air unit on up here in the studio itself

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right here in the studio, so I have to rely

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mainly on a window unit behind me. And I can't

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keep the window unit on when I'm broadcasting, which means

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as soon as I turn that off, it gets hot

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here in the studio. So I have limited amount of time.

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And I was sitting here debating, do you know what,

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just skip broadcasting? I mean, you know, nobody's going to

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care if you don't broadcast, and I understand that, but

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sometimes I want to broadcast, right, So I was like, well,

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what do I do? Well, I have the Sword of

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the Lord newspaper right here in front of me, right,

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we got to finish this small section on the Holy

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Spirit in revival probably takes me fifteen twenty minutes. But

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I'm like, well, we've kind of taken a slight detour, right,

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so maybe we should follow the detour. But then I

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was like, well, or maybe I just forget everything about revival,

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forget everything about the detour, and I have here in

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front of me. This was at the church for a

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long time in the library. I don't know why I

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ended up bringing it here, but I brought it here,

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and it's the kjav Study Bible, right, and I've had

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it for a long time. And I was like, and

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I saw it laying here, and I'm like, why did

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I bring this to the studio. I don't know. So

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I opened it up. There was a pencil marking a

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certain page, and I opened it up and it was

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how to Read and Study the Bible. How to read

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and Study the Bible. And I'm like, ooh, this looks interesting.

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I would love to walk through this for like its

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own special series. But what I want to do is

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I want to approach the series, not like, hey, here's

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how to read and study the Bible. I know, I

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want to approach the series. Here is how a Bible

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publisher thinks that, you know, by they thought it was

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important to put this article inside the front of their

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Bible on how to read and study the Bible. So

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if you were if you just if we just take

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their advice, how well off would we be? Would we

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really know how to read and study the Bible if

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we just took their advice? Like I want to just

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use Hey, this is what they say we need to

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do to learn how to read and study. What do

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we actually get so we may walk through it? I

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think it will be fun. The first sentence here, I

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already have a problem with the first sentence because they

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state something that's not completely accurate. Sorry, I'm hitting the microphone.

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So I thought about doing that, but again, that's going

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to turn into a series. I'm like, I don't really

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want to start a series when you know it's one

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hundred and twelve degrees outside, So I'm going to set

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that down. And I went back to the sord of

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the Lord Paper and I'm like, well, what we did

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earlier today or what not? Even the day before? I

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think maybe the day before as we were talking about

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revival and talking about this article, in the sort of

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the Lord newspaper. There was a message. There was a

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broadcast that's on the sermon's two point oh app on

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basically Charles Finnie and how he has shaped America, how

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he's shaped American evangelicalism. And I told everyone to go

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listen to that, and we did a partial review of that.

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Then I came back today because in their review and

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their discussion of Charles Finnie, they began their discussion by

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saying Charles Finnie is in Hell, and initially I had

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some pushback. So I came back today to say, well,

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Charles Finnie denied substitutionary atonement, he denied penal substitution. He

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he was not Orthodox Christian. He wasn't even a Christian

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in any way, shape or form. So if Charles Finnie

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wasn't even a Christian, then wired churches today still being

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influenced and using his techniques, and they hold to a

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philosophy of revival that goes to Fennie, not to scripture,

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even though they try to use scripture to justify it.

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And they're taking their philosophy on revival from someone who

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wasn't even a Christian. Okay, that's problematic. So remember I

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gave everyone a challenge for the sermons two point oh

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app sermon challenge for Thursday, Friday, Saturday and at least

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till Sunday. You're supposed to grab the sermon's two point

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oh app look up random sermons on Charles Fennie and

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I said, on your you know, get set Are you ready? Go? Okay?

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I know that's not exactly how you say power. You

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get the point right, go? So then I was like, okay,

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I've done it. Everyway's good to go. I'll move on.

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All right, right, I'll move on. How actually do you

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say that? On your mark? Get set go? That's how

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you say it, right? Obviously I didn't run track. Okay,

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on your mark, get set go. Isn't that the correct way?

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It better be the correct way. Okay. If it's not

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the correct way, do not correct me. Just let me

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live and being ignorant. Okay. But the point is I

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was like go, And then I was like, well, you know,

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it's gonna be like one hundred and thirteen degrees here.

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I don't know if I'm gonna be able to broadcast.

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I don't know if the AC is going to work

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or not work. I don't know what I'm gonna do.

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So then I was like, but they're like, well, you know,

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if I told everyone to do this, I like to

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demonstrate that I'm participating, right, So I'm like, well, let

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me grab the sermon's two point oh app, I'll do

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a search and guess where I found what I ended

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up with. I ended up at a message called Revivalism

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and Charles Finnie. Revivalism and Charles Finnie. Now that's perfect,

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right because we have now the series that we're doing

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on revival based off this article in the Sword of

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the Lord. All right, hey, that's good. So it's connects

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to that. It deals with Charles Finny. That connects with

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our kind of our Charles Finny challenge. For the next

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couple of days, you're looking up random sermons on Charles Finnie. Okay, great,

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it allows me to participate. Great. This one is a

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relatively popular message. It has eighty downloads. I mean that's

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pretty good, right. I'm like, okay, well it was published

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on July the nineteenth, twenty fifteen. Okay, well, I mean

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maybe that's not super popular, but maybe we can increase

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the numbers to it, right, maybe we can get it

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over one hundred. Right, So Revivalism and Charles Finnie from

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Calvary Baptist Church. Revivalism and Charles Finny from Calvary Baptist Church,

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please go download it, have it saved in your library

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so that you can listen to it whenever you can, right,

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or you can continue looking for other sermons. So I'm like,

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you know what, let's now, Typically when I do a review, right,

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I mean this, the duration of this is over an hour.

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So if we do a full review on this, you

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know what that means, right, this would be five, maybe

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six hours of broadcasting. So I don't know. I don't

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have a desire to do the whole thing, but I

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at least wanted to show you I'm participating, at least

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give you something to listen to, to encourage participation in

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this challenge, because hey, when it comes to church history,

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I cannot state this enough. Look, here's the practical. I

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may I may not know on your mark gets said, go,

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I may not know that. Okay, I may not know that,

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but I do know this, all right, I do know this.

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There's a lot of things I don't know, but when

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it comes to church history and theology, that's where I

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feel like I have at least some level of expertise.

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I may not know on your mark, get said CO,

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but I know this, this is very important. Your ignorance

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of church history, your ignorance of who Charles Finny was,

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what he taught, what he believed, and what he promoted.

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Your ignorance of anything in church history does not, in

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any way, shape or form, negate its influence upon your

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Christian life. So many things that you think, so many

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things you just think that's the way it is in Christianity,

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so many things, the way you think you've been influenced

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by things in the past. Now here's the issue. Your

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ignorance of it does not stop, does not negate its

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influence upon you. You are still influenced upon it. You

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just don't know where the influence is coming from. You

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just look. But that's the way Christians have always done it.

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Christians have always done church this way. Christians have always

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had an altar call, Christians have always had revival services.

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There's just so many that Christians have always had, pot lucks,

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chrit you just so many things that happen in your church.

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You just assume that's the way it was during the

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time of Jesus. Well, it's not. No, you've been influenced

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by so many things. Just your ignorance just means you

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don't know what you're being influenced by. Well, if there

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is eight, just think about this, Just think about how

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radical this is. If a major influence and modern day

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Christianity can be traced back to someone who actually wasn't

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a Christian, should that not bother us? Hey, Charles Finny

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had a profound impact on revivalism and the concept of

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revival and evangelical and fundamental circles. Now sad to say

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that influence comes from a man who wasn't even a Christian.

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Do you realize like that makes us look like, whoa,

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we got a problem here. We got a problem right

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here in River City, ladies and gentlemen. We got a

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problem with a capital t okay to start doing the music. Man,

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all right, but you get the idea that's that's rather profound. Now,

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I told you look up random sermons on the sermon's

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two point oh oup on Charles Finny. I said, you

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may find some that are and are pro Charles Finnie.

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They're in Team Finny. You're gonna find others who are

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very much on antire There they're in the team against

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Charles Finnie. But that guess what, you'll get to hear

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different perspectives. All right, So let's listen to revivalism and

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Charles Finny. Now I can't I still I still believe,

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like I don't know who I can convince. There's someone

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I have to convince. Sermon audio, you've got the sermon audio.

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You've got the sermon audio radio. Like it's a it's

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a tab sermon audio radio, and people can listen to

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sermon audio. But you're the the It needs to be changed, right,

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you need live people. They're hosting it, and those line

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people are putting together sermons randomly but on different like hey,

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for the next for the next three hours, today we're

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gonna only listen to sermons on Charles Fennie. Hey, the

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next three hours we're only going I mean, you could

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start the day. Today is Church History Day. Here on

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sermon audio radio, we're gonna start three. The first three

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hours is on Augustine, the next one is on Athanacious,

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the next is on and just look for sermons dealing

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with church history. You could do that and then the

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next day you could be like today it's all in Proverbs.

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We're gonna look only at sermons on Proverbs chapter one

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and then the next day today, or you can just

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break them up in segment. It's not even an entire day.

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The next four hours is only sermons on Psalms chapter three,

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or we're gonna do the next hour. The next three

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hours is just random, and you have someone introducing, guiding it,

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directing it, putting them together, and unique ways finding different sermons.

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So that because now when you listen to sermon audio radio,

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it just it's like a computer just put in and

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it's almost seems like the same names over and over

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and over and over. You have a library of millions

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of sermons. Use that library you can create, you know, man,

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I just think there's so much potential there, and so

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I would love the opportunity. Just tell me I can

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use the sermons and then I'll just introduce them and

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I'll just play them. I'll just play them. I won't

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even offer criticism or critique. Okay, now I can't I

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actually do that. I don't know, but I just think,

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but I wish I could do something like that. It

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would be so awesome to have that library and just

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be able to you know, do introductions and play the sermon,

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and then I don't know, there's I just think you

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could do something unique. But I digress. See taking too

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much time here, But are you ready? The point is

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your ignorance of all of this stuff does not negate

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its influence. And if modern day Christianity is being influenced

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by a man who turns out to not even be saved,

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that's problematic. So let's listen to this message revivalism. And

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Charles Finney from Calvary Baptist Church. I don't know how

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long we're gonna go. We're just gonna take it, and

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we may not go long. We'll see, all right, ladies

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and gentlemen, here we.

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Go for the series that we're doing on our Baptist heritage.

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And we've done many things that are principles, individual soul, liberty,

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the priesthood of the believer, Baptism by Immercian Congregational Church, government,

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and separation of church and state. Some of these things

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that have been Baptist principles. What I'm going to look

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at today is something that's a little more historical, and

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that is the idea of revival is revivalism. Now, I

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want to make a distinction here between revival and revivalism.

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All right, so let's look at the distinction. Let's look

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at the nature of revival. I think some of you

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are still getting the sheet, but I'll try not to.

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There is a lot to cover, so I'll try not

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to lose you here. But we're under point number one.

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The nature revivalism, A the nature revival and then Arabic

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one definition of revival.

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Okay, this is good stuff already. What is the difference?

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What is the distinction between revival and revivalism? What is

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the difference between revival and revivalism? Is it the same?

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Is it different? How are they related? How are they

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not related? Wow, I'm already this is I picked a

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good one. This already sounds very interesting. Starting off with

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a clear outline. All right, revival revivalism. He may define

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revival and revivalism. We may forget the distinction. Is there

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a difference we need to note? All right, let's let's

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let's find out.

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And it's very basic. A revival is the renewal of

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spiritual life to what is dead or nearly dead.

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So well else would we use this word?

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Okay, you go to the beach and someone is in distress,

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and the lifeguards go out there and they drag him

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to the shore. And this person's unconscious and they perform

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CPR on them, and the person gasps for air, and

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what do we say?

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The lifeguards revived him? Right? Okay, so the person was

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nearly dead.

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And they were revived or someone literally does their heart

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stops in the emergency room and the doctors revived them.

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Right.

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They were legally dead and clinically dead and they revived them.

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So the idea of revival is that something was spiritually

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dead and is now spiritually alive. Now, one thing I

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do want to note is do know that the word

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revival is not in the Bible.

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I feel that because he said spiritually dead, so I

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typically say spiritually dead. We're referring to lost people. I

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think revival is about Christians who are dead in a

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sense spiritual activity, spiritual passion, spiritual zeal. They've fallen, fallen

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into becoming complacent, apathetic, not caring, spiritually lifeless, spiritually dead

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in that way, and they were revived. Revival is for

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the church. Revival is for believers. Revival is not for

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the lost world. Revival is for Christians who had maybe

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a passion, a zeal of fire, a desire, and they've

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lost it. They've become discouraged, depressed, feel like giving up whatever.

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And now they are revived with a renewed passion and

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zeal for God. That I think, if we're gonna, if

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I'm even gonna even try to get into a discussion

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about defining it, I would define it more in those lines, right.

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It's for believers, it's for the church, not for the lost.

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It's for the church. I know in so many revival

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services is about bring your lost friends, bring your lost friends,

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and then it becomes an evangelistic campaign. Revival is not

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an evangelistic campaign. Revival is a call for God to

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break humble and revive his children. That is how I

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perceive it. You can obviously offer counter definition if you

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so desire.

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Okay, that doesn't necessarily mean that revivals are bad things.

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But we do need to note that I'm not aware

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of the term revival in the way that we normally

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use the term being used in the scriptures.

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So let me say this.

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I would define a revival as a spontaneous spiritual event

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that affects a congregation, nation, or region. Most revivals we're

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going to talk about tonight had to do with a

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nation or a region resulting in greater spiritual health and conversions.

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So what usually happens is the churches get healthier and

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there's people are converted. So, for example, and I'll go

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through a list of these revivals, I'll mention one that

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I think is remarkable.

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Okay, Now, if you say conversion is a side effect

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or like it's like because the church has revived, now

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they're gonna be more evangelism taking place, I would just

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say the conversion of the lost would be a side

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effect of the church being revived. But then we get

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into a discussion of well, wait a minute, So these

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people could have been saved, but they weren't saved, and

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then they get saved simply because the churches revived. Then

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does that mean salvation is not a sovereign work of God?

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And then what does election followed? Okay? I think I

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know there's a lot of philological issues that surround it.

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I'm just going to say revival itself is about the congregation,

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about the individual, It's about the children of God. What

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happens after that, Okay, But those are the side effects

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or those are the consequences of revival, but it's not

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revival itself. Revival itself is the reviving of God's people,

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and I do agree it's spontaneous. I don't think you

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can if you schedule it, then you typically then rely

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on techniques to manipulate. Then the emotional response where people

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fil revived, but it's only because they've been revived through

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psychological techniques that get them all fired up, and then

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it all crashes and burns.

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In American history, we've already covered it a little bit,

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but that's the great Awakening, which is point D under two.

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I've created this definition from various definitions of revival I've

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come across. Based on this definition, we would all desire

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that God would send a revival. Okay, if you accept

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this as the definition revival, that is that God's spontaneously

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spiritually works in a congregation, a nation, or a region regrets,

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resulting in greater spiritual health or end conversions when we

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want that. In other words, would we say we would

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like to see Calvary Baptist Church see a work of

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God in which there's greater spiritual health in our congregation

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and people are converted. Who would complain about that? Nobody

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would complain about that, right, we'd all say thank the

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Lord for his work. And historically there have been revivals

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in which we can point to we saw in history

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God did something like this. Okay, some of these and

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I'll get into that in a minute. The Ulster Revival

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of sixteen twenty five in Ireland, the Pietistic Revival of

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Germany which began about sixteen sixty six.

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Probably the best known group of these would be.

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This would have been I'm not sure if you're that

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familiar with the Pietists, but they were the precursors to

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the Moravians, who also come about one hundred years little

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less than a hundred years later after that. But Count

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Nicholas von Zinzendorf, that may not be a name you're

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really familiar with. There's actually a couple hymns in our

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Hymnal were written by Sinzendorf, and that comes out of

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that Pietism. What had happened is Germany had the Lutheranism

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in Germany had become stagnated, and there was it had

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become academic, and so there was this idea of we

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need some spiritual fervor, we need some spiritual you know, affection,

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some love for God, not just going through the motions.

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The Moravian Revival. The Moravians were influential in another one

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of these, and that's point e, the Wesleyan Revival. It's

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because of the steadiness of the Moravians that John Wesley

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had his evangelical conversion and saw a significant revival in England.

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All right, the Great Awakening. The leaders in the Great

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Awakening were Jonathan Edwards and George Whitfield were some of

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the notable leaders in that time period. Whitfield sort of

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at the end of it, Jonathan Edwards at the beginning

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of it. Interestingly, Jonathan edwards book about the revival in

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Northampton is entitled something like the Surprising Work of God,

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and they had these really long titles, but it begins

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with the Surprising Work of God. In other words, the

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way Jonathan Edwards, who was really the one who started

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humanly speaking, who the Lord used to start the Great Awakening,

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was a man who said, basically, God did this all right,

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I just preached the Word and God did this. Sinners

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in the hands of an angry God. If you ever

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want to know if somebody's off base, historically, listen to

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the way they deal with the Great Awakening.

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I have heard.

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Historians on the History Channel and these kind of things

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say things like Jonathan Edwards stirred people up into an

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emotional frenzy, and he preached this helfire and brimstone sermon,

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Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God. Let me

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commend to you the reading of Sinners in the Hands

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of an Angry God. You can find free copies of

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it on the Internet, and you can see he's preaching

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to a congregation of people which had a lot of

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unbelievers in the congregation, many unconverted people in the church,

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and he was preaching to them to convert, to come

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to faith and repentance in Christ. But the thing is,

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if you know anything about Edwards, he read his sermons

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and he read them with some emotion, but there was

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no pulpit pounding or screaming and yelling.

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So this was not the kind of thing.

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That was as we think of today, you know, hyper emotionalistic.

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And it's always interesting because what that is is that's

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a historian who doesn't really understand the fact who's reading

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into it. You know, he thinks that he was oral

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Roberts or something. You know, some kind of thing like that.

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Reading that back into Jonathan Edwards, it's not what it was.

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Jonathan Edwards was actually surprised by the mass amount of

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conversions and people coming back to a walk with the Lord.

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George Whitfield admittedly was.

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A little more dramatic in his preaching Godly Man, but

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he was also involved in the Wesleyan Revivals, or what

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we'd call the Methodist revivals. George Whitfield was a Methodist

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along with John and Charles Wesley. Those were primarily in England,

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the Wesleyan Revivals.

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Now we can ask ourselves the Pietistic Pietism revival and

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the Wesleyan revival, Pietism and Wesleyanism. Pietism and Wesleyanism. Here

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it would be the question, how philologically sound is Wesleyanism

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and Pietism. What would be some philological issues that would

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arise out of Pietism and Wesleyanism. Now, if you're having

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a revival of Pietism or Wesleyanism, how do we judge

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those revivals in regards to philological issues that may we

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agree or disagree with. See a lot of times we

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judge revivals by the response, the numbers, the way people acted,

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the fervor, the excitement, the brokenness, the emotions, whatever the

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case may be. But should we judge a revival on

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the number of people who have an experience or whatever

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the case may be, or the numbers the numbers of people,

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or do we judge it on the base of the

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theology that arises from that movement, that revival Pietism and Wesleyanism.

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Right now, I almost want to look some things up

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right now, but I will not because then because it'll

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be awkward. But we need to write those down. So

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I'm going to write down the word Pietism and Wesleyanism

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if I can spell right. I probably spelled it incorrectly,

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but I can read it Wesleyanism and Pietism, and then

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maybe we'll come back to those at some point. But hey,

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if a lot of times Christians love to go there

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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