Charles Finney (1792 – 1875)

Who Was He?

Charles Grandison Finney was born on 29 August 1792 in Warren, Connecticut. He grew up on the American frontier in upstate New York, received little formal education, and trained as a lawyer. As he studied law, he noticed how often the legal textbooks quoted the Bible. He purchased a Bible to check the references — and the Bible captured him.

After months of wrestling with his soul, Finney surrendered to Christ on 10 October 1821 in a profound and transformative conversion experience in the woods near his home. That very e vening he was baptised with the Holy Spirit in an experience he described as “wave after wave of liquid love”. He immediately gave up his legal career and began preaching.

Finney was active as a revivalist from 1825 to 1835, and the results were extraordinary. Entire towns were turned upside down. Taverns were closed. Crime rates dropped. Social reform followed wherever he preached. His most famous campaign was in Rochester, New York, in 1830 – 31, where an estimated ten thousand people were converted and the whole character of the city was transformed.

In 1835, Finney joined the faculty of Oberlin College in Ohio, which was a pioneer in admitting both women and African Americans. He served as its second president from 1851 to 1865. He wrote the landmark Lectures on Revivals of Religion, which has inspired more revivals than almost any other book outside the Bible, and was used by God to ignite the Welsh Revival of the 1840s and many others. He died in 1875 at the age of 82 and is regarded as the Father of Modern Revivalism.

A Great Answer to Prayer The Rochester revival of 1830 –31 remains the greatest single answered prayer in Finney’s ministry. Before the campaign, Finney’s intercessor — the remarkable “Father Nash” (Daniel Nash) — had gone ahead of him into the city days beforehand, renting a small dark room and spending entire days on his face before God, weeping, fasting, and crying out for souls.

When Finney arrived and began preaching, the Spirit of God moved with extraordinary power. A leading pastor who was converted in the Rochester meetings gave this account: “The whole community was stirred. Religion was the topic of conversation in the house, in the shop, in the office and on the street. The only theatre in the city was converted into a livery stable; the only circus into a soap and candle factory. Rum shops were closed; the Sabbath was honoured; the sanctuaries were thronged with happy worshippers.”

Over ten thousand people were genuinely converted in that one campaign. Finney himself attributed everything to prayer — Father Nash’s hidden intercessions, the prayer of local believers, and the earnest preparation of his own heart before he ever opened his mouth to preach.

Key Scriptures Luke 11:13 — “If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him!”

Isaiah 44:3 — “I will pour My Spirit on your descendants, and My blessing on your offspring.”

Acts 2:17 — “In the last days, God says, I will pour out My Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your young men will see visions, your old men will dream dreams.”

His Words on Prayer “A revival may be expected when Christians have a spirit of prayer for a revival — when they pray as if their hearts were set upon it; when they go about groaning out their heart's desire; when they have real travail of soul.”

“Nothing tends more to cement the hearts of Christians than praying together. Never do they love one another so well as when they witness the outpouring of each other's hearts in prayer.”

“It was very common to find Christians, whenever they met in any place, instead of engaging in conversation, to fall on their knees in prayer.”

“What are our Bibles good for, if we do not lay hold on their precious promises, and use them as the ground of our faith when we pray for the blessing of God?”

“If you find yourself strongly drawn to desire a blessing, you are to understand it as an intimation that God is willing to bestow that particular blessing, and so you are bound to believe it.”

Prayer and the Word of God “God says He is more ready to give His Holy Spirit to them that ask Him than parents are to give bread to their children. Here we are bound to believe that we shall receive it when we pray for it. You have no right to put in an “if” and say, “Lord, if it be Thy will, give us Thy Holy Spirit.” This is to insult God.”

“Prayer is an essential link in the chain of causes that lead to a revival. Truth by itself will never produce the effect without the Spirit of God, and that Spirit is given in answer to prayer.”

Prayer and the Holy Spirit “Be filled with His Spirit, and He will give you objects enough to pray for. He will give you as much of the spirit of prayer as you have strength of body to bear.”

“But as I turned and was about to take a seat by the fire, I received a mighty baptism of the Holy Ghost. Without any expectation of it, without ever having the thought in my mind that there was any such thing for me, the Holy Spirit descended upon me in a manner that seemed to go through me, body and soul. I could feel the impression, like a wave of electricity, going through and through me. Indeed it seemed to come in waves and waves of liquid love.”

“Prayer is not the foe to work, it doe s not paralyse activity. It works mightily; prayer itself is the greatest work.”