Call to Commitment

 

This article contains accounts of Christians, who have found the highest level of communion in their relationship with their Lord. In so doing, they have discovered the meaning of the creation of man, made in the image and likeness of God. It is something that causes bewilderment in the mind of an unbeliever, even if he happens to be the husband of a believing woman, as we will see in the first account below. It is followed by the story of another woman, who finds the high calling of an intimate relationship with God, which becomes the greatest thing in her life… more than life itself. Next, we will see an elder in a church, grown cold, although occupied in playing a leading part in religion. He is revitalized in a moment, by one touch of God upon his life. We will see how the overwhelming power of the truth, frees and transforms someone, who had been deceived by error that had been falsely presented to him as Christianity.  Finally, before turning to Finney’s own story, we will see a beloved believer, traveling through the valley of the shadow of death, but no valley or shadow appears, only the hope of joining the triumphant saints in glory.

 

The amazing work of God in the hearts of human beings

 There was a lady living in the first Ward by the name of Childs, the Christian wife of an unconverted husband. She was a lady of great refinement, and beauty of character and person. Her husband was a merchant, a man of good moral character, and as I should judge from what I heard him say, passionately fond of his wife. She attended our meetings, and became very much convicted for a deeper work of grace in her soul. 

 A few days afterwards her husband called on me one morning with his sleigh, and asked me to take a ride with him. I did so, and found that his object was to talk with me about his wife. He said that she was brought up among the Friends, and when he married her, he thought she was one of the most perfect women that he ever knew. But finally, he said, she became converted, and then he observed a greater change in her than he thought was possible, for he thought her as perfectly moral in her outward life before as she could be. Nevertheless, the change in her spirit and bearing at the time of her conversion was so manifest, he said, that no one could doubt it. "Since then," he said, "I have thought her almost or quite perfect. But." said he, "now she has manifestly passed through a greater change than ever. I see it in everything," said he. "There is such a spirit in her, such a change, such an energy in her religion, and such a fullness of joy and peace and love!" He inquired, "What shall I make of it? How am I to understand this? Do such changes really take place in Christian people?"

I explained it to him as best I could. I tried to make him understand what she was by her education as a Quaker, and what her conversion had done for her, and then told him that this was a fresh baptism of the Holy Spirit that had so greatly changed her at that time. He was manifestly much surprised at the changes that had come over his wife, and especially this last one. She has now passed away to heaven, but the savor of that anointing of the Holy Spirit remained with her, as I have been informed, to the day of her death.

 (Then there was Mrs. Harris.) I called in at Mr. Harris', and found him pale and agitated. He said to me, "Brother Finney, I think my wife will die. She is so exercised in her mind that she cannot rest day or night, but is given up entirely to prayer. She has been all the morning," said he, "in her room groaning and struggling in prayer, and I am afraid it will entirely overcome her strength." Hearing my voice in the sitting room, she came out from her bedroom and upon her face was a most unearthly, heavenly glow. Her countenance was lighted up with a hope and a joy that were plainly from heaven. She exclaimed, "Brother Finney, the Lord has come! This work will spread over all this region! A cloud of mercy overhangs us all, and we shall see such a work of grace as we have never yet seen." 

 (We now have Elder Burnett, instrumental in sharing the work of God to a cold Elder Smith.) EIder Smith attended meeting in the morning, and at the intermission was invited by EIder Burnett to go home with him and get some refreshment. EIder Burnett was full of the Holy Spirit, and on the way home he preached to Elder Smith, who was at the time very cold and backward in religion. Elder Smith was very much penetrated by his words. Soon after they entered the house, the table was spread, and they were invited to sit down and take some refreshment. As they drew around the table, Elder Smith said to Elder Burnett: "How did you get this blessing?" Elder Burnett replied: "I stopped lying to God." Said he, "All my Christian life I have been making pretenses, and asking God for things that I was not on the whole willing to have; and I had gone on and prayed as other people prayed, and often had been insincere, and really lied to God." He continued: "As soon as I made up my mind that I never would say anything to God in prayer that I did not really mean, God answered me; and the Spirit came down, and I was filled with the Holy Ghost." At this moment Mr. Smith, who had not commenced to eat, shoved his chair back from the table, and fell on his knees and began to confess how he had lied to God; and how he had played the hypocrite, in his prayers as well as in his life. The Holy Ghost fell upon him immediately, and filled him as full as he could hold.

 The first that I knew anything of it was as follows: The people had assembled for afternoon worship, and I was standing in the pulpit reading a hymn. I heard somebody talking very loud and approaching the house of worship, the door and windows being open. Directly two men came in. Elder Burnett I knew; the other man was a stranger. As soon as he came in at the door, he lifted his eyes to me, came straight into the desk to me, and took me right up in his arms-- "God bless you!" said he; "God bless you!" He then began and told me, and told the congregation, what the Lord had just done for his soul. His countenance was all in a glow; and he was so changed in his appearance, that those that knew him were perfectly astonished at the change.

 Very soon a Roman Catholic tailor, Mr. Father, rose up in the congregation and said: "I must tell you what the Lord has done for my soul. I was brought up;" said he, "a Roman Catholic, and I never dared to read my Bible. I was told that if I did, the devil would carry me off bodily. Sometimes when I dared to look into it, it seemed as if the devil was peaking over my shoulder, and had come to carry me off. But," said he, "I see it is all a delusion." And he went on to tell what the Lord had done for his soul right there on the spot--what views the Lord had given him of the way of salvation by Jesus Christ. It was evident to everybody that he was converted. This made a great impression on the congregation. I could not preach. The whole course of the meeting had taken on a type which the Lord had given it. I sat still and saw the salvation of God. One after another told what the Lord had done for their souls, and the work went on.

 (Finally, a Christian testifies from his deathbed.) It was soon found that Mr. O'Brien could not live through the day. He called his wife to his bedside and said to her, "My dear, I am going to spend the Sabbath in heaven. Let all the family go, and all the friends, and unite with the church below; and I will join the church above." Before meeting time, he was dead. Friends were called in to lay him in his shroud. His family and relatives gathered around his corpse, and then turned away and came to meeting; and, as he had desired, united with the church militant, while he went to unite with the church triumphant. This was a most affecting scene, and a moving fact to mention at the communion table. Their pastor had but just gone before; and I think it was that morning I had said to Mr. O'Brien, "Give my love to Brother Greer when you get to heaven." He smiled with holy joy and said to me, "Do you think I shall know him?" I said, "Yes, undoubtedly you will know him. Give him my love, and tell him the work is going on gloriously." "I will, I will," said he.  

 

Finney’s deep personal trial and the victory that followed 

I shall never forget what a scene I passed through one day in my room at Dr. Lansing's in Auburn, soon after my arrival there. The Lord showed me in a vision what I had to pass through. He drew so near to me while I was engaged in prayer that my flesh literally trembled on my bones. I shook from head to foot, like a man in an ague fit, under a full sense of the presence of God. At first, and for some time, it seemed more like being on the top of Sinai, amidst its full thunderings, than in the presence of the cross of Christ. Never in my life, that I recollect, was I so awed and humbled before God as I was then. Nevertheless, instead of feeling like fleeing, I seemed drawn nearer and nearer to God--seemed to draw nearer and nearer to that Presence that filled me with such unutterable awe and trembling. After a season of great humiliation before Him, there came a great lifting up.

 One morning while I was engaged in prayer the thought occurred to me, what if after all this teaching my will is not carried, and this teaching takes effect only in my sensibility? May it not be that my sensibility is affected by these revelations from reading the Bible, and that my heart is not really subdued by them? At this point several passages of Scripture occurred to me, such as this: "Line must be upon line, line upon line, precept upon precept, precept upon precept, here a little and there a little that they might go and fall backward, and be snared and taken." The thought that I might be deceiving myself by the states of my sensibility, when it first occurred to me, stung me almost like an adder. It created a pang that I cannot describe. The passages of Scripture that occurred in that direction for a few moments greatly increased my distress. But directly I was enabled to fall back upon the perfect will of God. I said to the Lord, that if He saw it was wise and best, and that His honor demanded that I should be left to be deluded and go down to hell, I accepted His will; and I said to Him "Do with me as seemeth good."

 Just before this occurrence I had had a great struggle to consecrate myself to God in a higher sense than I had ever before seen to be my duty, or conceived of as possible. I had often before laid my family all upon the altar of God, and left them to be disposed of at His discretion. But at this time that I now speak of, and previously to my finally accepting the will of God, I had had a great struggle about giving up my wife to the will of God. She was in very feeble health, and it was very evident that she could not live long.

 I about that time had a dream about my wife that had opened the way for the struggle of which I speak. After that dream I attempted to lay her upon the altar, as I had often before done. But I had never before seen so clearly what was implied in laying her and all that I possessed upon the altar of God, and for hours I struggled upon my knees to give her up unqualifiedly to the will of God. But I found myself unable to do it. I was so shocked and surprised at this that I perspired profusely with agony. I struggled and prayed until I was exhausted, and found myself entirely unable to give her altogether up to God's will, in such a way as to make no objection to His disposing of her as He pleased.

 This troubled me much. I wrote to my wife, telling her what a struggle I had had, and the concern that I felt at not being willing to commit her unqualifiedly to the perfect will of God. This was but a very short time before I had this temptation, as it now seems to me to have been, of which I have spoken, when those passages of Scripture came up distressingly to my mind, and when the bitterness almost of death seemed for a few moments to possess me at the thought that my religion might be of the sensibility only, and that God's teaching might have taken effect only in my feeling. But as I said, I was enabled, after struggling for a few moments with this discouragement and bitterness, which I have since attributed to a fiery dart of Satan, to fall back in a deeper sense than I had ever done before upon the infinitely blessed and perfect will of God. I then told the Lord that I had such confidence in Him that I felt perfectly willing to give myself, my wife and my family, and all, to be disposed of without any qualification according to His own views and will. That if He thought it best and wise to send me to hell, to do so, and I would consent to it.

 As to my wife, I felt also entirely willing to lay her, body and soul, upon the altar, without the least misgiving in my mind in delivering her up to the perfect will of God. I then had a deeper view of what was implied in consecration to God than I ever had before. I spent a long time upon my knees in considering the matter all over, and giving up everything to the will of God: the interests of the church, the progress of religion, the conversion of the world, and the salvation or damnation of my own soul as the will of God might decide. Indeed I recollect that I went so far as to say to the Lord with all my heart, that He might do anything with me or mine to which His blessed will could consent. That I had such perfect confidence in His goodness and love, as to believe that He could consent to do nothing to which I could object. I felt a kind of holy boldness in telling Him to do with me just as seemed to Him good. That He could not do anything that was not perfectly wise and good; and therefore, I had the best of grounds for accepting whatever He could consent to in respect to me and mine. So deep and perfect a resting in the will of God I had never before known.

 What has appeared strange to me is this, that I could not get hold of my former hope, nor could I recollect with any freshness any of the former seasons of communion and divine assurance that I had experienced. I may say that I gave up my hope, and rested everything upon a new foundation. I mean I gave up my hope from any past experience, and recollect telling the Lord that I did not know whether He intended to save me or not. Nor did I feel concerned to know. I was willing to abide the event. I said that if I found that He kept me, and worked in me by His Spirit, and was preparing me for heaven, working holiness and eternal life in my soul, I should take it for granted that He intended to save me; that if, on the other hand, I found myself empty of divine strength and light and love, I should conclude that He saw it wise and expedient to send me to hell; and that in either event I would accept His will. My mind settled into a perfect stillness.

 This was early in the morning, and through the whole of that day I seemed to be in a state of perfect rest, body and soul. The question frequently arose in my mind during the day, "Do you still adhere to your consecration, and abide in the will of God?" I said without hesitation, "Yes, I take nothing back. I have no reason for taking anything back; I went no farther in pledges and professions than was reasonable. I have no reason for taking anything back--I do not want to take anything back." The thought that I might be lost did not distress me. Indeed, think as I might during that whole day, I could not find in my mind the least fear, the least disturbing emotion. Nothing troubled me. I was neither elated nor depressed; I was neither, as I could see, joyful nor sorrowful. My confidence in God was perfect; my acceptance of His will was perfect; and my mind was as calm as heaven. Just at evening the question arose in my mind, "What if God should send me to hell--what then?" "Why, I would not object to it." "But can He send a person to hell." was the next inquiry, "who accepts His will in the sense in which you do?" This inquiry was no sooner raised in my mind than settled. I said, "No, it is impossible. Hell could be no hell to me if I accepted God's perfect will." This sprung a vein of joy in my mind that kept developing more and more for weeks and months, and indeed I may say for years.

 The language of the Song of Solomon was as natural to me as my breath. I thought I could understand well the state of mind he was in when he wrote that song, and concluded then, as I have ever thought since, that that song was written by him after he had been reclaimed from his great backsliding. I not only had all the freshness of my first love, but a vast accession to it. Indeed the Lord lifted me so much above anything that I had experienced before, and taught me so much of the meaning of the Bible, of Christ's relations and power and willingness, that I often found myself saying to Him, "I had not known or conceived that any such thing was true." I then realized what is meant by the saying, that He "is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think." He did at that time teach me indefinitely above all that I had ever asked or thought. I had had no conception of the length and breadth, and height and depth, and efficiency of His grace. It seemed then to me that that passage, "My grace is sufficient for thee," meant so much that it was wonderful I had never understood it before. I found myself exclaiming, "Wonderful! Wonderful! Wonderful!" as these revelations were made to me. I could understand then what was meant by the prophet when he said, "His name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, the Mighty God, the everlasting Father, the Prince of peace."

 I knew when I reflected upon it, and remembered through what I had so often passed. It appeared to me that winter, as if it is probable, when we get to heaven, our views, and joys, and holy exercises, will so far surpass anything that we have ever experienced in this life, that we shall be hardly able to recognize the fact that we had any religion while in this world. I had in fact oftentimes experienced inexpressible joys, and very deep communion with God; but all this had fallen so into the shade, under my enlarged experience that winter, that frequently I would tell the Lord that I had never before had any conception of the wonderful things revealed in His blessed Gospel, and the wonderful grace there was in Christ Jesus. This language, I knew when I reflected upon it, was comparative, but still all my former experiences for the time seemed to be sealed up, and almost lost sight of.

 I speak of these exercises as habitual since that period, but I cannot affirm that they have been altogether unbroken, for in 1860, during a fit of sickness, I had a season of great depression and wonderful humiliation. But the Lord brought me out of it into an established peace and rest.

 One day I was upon my knees communing with God upon the subject, and all at once He seemed to say to me: "You loved your wife?" "Yes," I said. "Well, did you love her for her own sake, or for your sake? Did you love her, or yourself? If you loved her for her own sake, why do you sorrow that she is with me? Should not her happiness with me make you rejoice instead of mourn, if you loved her for her own sake? Did you love her," He seemed to say to me, "for my sake? If you loved her for my sake, surely you would not grieve that she is with me. Why do you think of your loss, and lay so much stress upon that, instead of thinking of her gain? Can you be sorrowful when she is so joyful and happy? If you loved her for her own sake, would you not rejoice in her joy, and be happy in her happiness?" I can never describe the feelings that came over me when I seemed to be thus addressed. It produced an instantaneous change in the whole state of my mind in regard to the loss of my wife.

 From that moment sorrow, on account of the event, was gone forever. I no longer thought of her as dead, but as alive and in the midst of the glories of heaven. My faith was at this time so strong and my mind so enlightened, that it seemed as if I could enter into the very state of mind in which she was in heaven; and if there is any such thing as communing with an absent spirit, or with one who is in heaven, I seemed to commune with her. Not that I ever supposed she was present in such a sense that I at any time communed personally with her. But it seemed as if I knew what her state of mind was there, what profound, unbroken rest in the perfect will of God. I could see that that was heaven, and I experienced it in my own soul. And I have never to this day got over these views. They frequently recur to me--as the very state of mind in which the inhabitants of heaven are, and I can see why they are in such a state of mind.