Can'T Bring Finney Back

I was listening to an old Rolf Barnard sermon that he preached in the early 1960s, and he got off to a slow start. He fumbled around for the right words and finally got his message off on a level playing field. He told the story about how he once held some meetings up in the had visited the same mill factory that Charles Finney had visited, and how Charles Finney had seen a move of God and revival in that factory when Finney had entered the mill and walked up the aisle, that people got disturbed, girls at their looms began to weep and cry over sin, how the presence of God was so thick in that mill, that the owner came by and told Finney he was shutting down the mill so awakened sinners could attend to their souls.

And Rolf Barnard said, as he walked through that same mill, no one paid him any never mind, they never once looked up from their work or got disturbed like the time Finney was there. And Rolf Barnard said that when he got outside, his face was drenched in tears as he cried out to God to send Finney back to that town once again. And God said, no Rolf, Finney preached for his day, and that day is done.

And as Rolf Barnard related this story, about halfway through his message, God took over. It was still Barnard talking, but God was doing the speaking. You could sense the Spirit of God had sat down on that congregation, bringing conviction.

The disturbing presence of Christ was eminently evident. Every time I listen to that sermon, it has the same effect on me. When was the last time, brother preacher, that one of your sermons brought your hearers to the very verge of eternity? When was the last time that you spoke for God, that your people actually saw bloodstained Christ hanging and squirming on a cross for sin? When was the last time that when you preached, the people felt the disturbing presence of Christ and saw the alternative of flashes of hellfire on their soul? We don't need Trolls Finney to come back in our day.

We just need to be on fire for God like Finney was. What counts costs, and what costs counts. If you want more of God, then God has to have more of you.

We need to be on fire for God, and preach the full counsel of God, and warn men and women and boys and girls of their need of repentance and their great danger of dying without Christ, to be cast forever in a smoking pit of darkness of a burning hell.