DAY 17 : Breaking Up the Fallow Ground - Part 6

By Charles Finney

Charles Finney, one of the greatest revivalists of our nation’s history, lived during the time of the 2nd Great Awakening. Much of the success of the revival was due to Finney’s thorough and uncompromising approach to repentance.

“Break up your fallow ground, for it is time to seek the LORD, till He comes and rains righteousness upon you.”

-   Hosea 10:12

DEVOTIONAL

And now, finally, will you break up your fallow ground? Will you enter upon the course now pointed out, and persevere till you are thoroughly awake? If you fail here, if you do not do this, and get prepared, you can go no further with me in this course of lectures. I have gone with you as far as it is of any use to go, until your fallow ground is broken up. Now, you must make thorough work upon this point, or all I have further to say will do you little good. Nay, it will only harden and make you worse.

If, when next Friday night arrives, it finds you with unbroken hearts, you need not expect to be benefited by what I shall say. If you do not set about this work immediately, I shall take it for granted that you do not mean to be revived, that you have forsaken your minister, and mean to let him go up to battle alone. If you do not do this, I charge you with having forsaken Christ, with refusing to repent and do your first work. But if you will be prepared to enter upon the work, I propose, God willing, next Friday evening, to lead you into the work of saving sinners.

PRAYER RESPONSE:

(Disclaimer: Some of what Charles Finney shares may seem blunt or initially offensive to our modern sensibilities.  However, if we will maintain an open and humble heart, the Lord can use it to bring great freedom and breakthrough in our lives!   

Just as the Word of God can be piercing and sharp, just as He cuts deep [at times] in order to heal us, let's allow these points of repentance to cut deep - and to surrender what He brings to mind. Pray for the grace and desire to see the whole truth, and to remain unoffendable personally.)

Self-examination consists in looking at your lives, in considering your actions, in calling up the past, and learning its true character.  Look back over your past history. Take up your individual sins one by one, and look at them... It will be a good thing to take a pen and paper, as you go over them, and write them down as they occur to you.  General confessions of sin will never do. Your sins were committed one by one; and as far as you can come at them, they ought to be reviewed and repented of one by one. 

SINS OF COMMISSION

7. LYING

Understand now what lying is.  Any species of designed deception for a selfish reason is lying.  If the deception is not a design it is not lying.  But if you design to make an impression contrary to the naked truth, you lie.  Put down all those cases you can recollect.  Don't call them by any soft name.  God calls them LIES, and charges you with LYING, and you had better charge yourself correctly.

How innumerable are the falsehoods perpetrated every day in business, and in social intercourse, by words, and looks, and actions -- designed to make an impression on others contrary to the truth for selfish reasons.

8. CHEATING 

Set down all the cases in which you have dealt with an individual, and done to him that which you would not like to have done to you.  That is cheating.  God has laid down a rule in the case; "All things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them."  That is the rule; and now if you have not done so you are a cheat.  Mind, the rule is not that you should do what you might reasonably expect them to do to you.  That is a rule which would admit of every degree of wickedness.  But it is "As ye WOULD they should do to you."

9. HYPOCRISY 

For instance, in your prayers and confessions to God.  Set down the instances in which you have prayed for things you did not really want.  And the evidence is, that when you had done praying, you could not tell what you had prayed for.  How many times have you confessed sins that you did not mean to break off, and when you had no solemn purpose not to repeat them?  Yes, have confessed sins when you knew you as much expected to go and repeat them as you expected to live.

10. ROBBING GOD 

Instances in which you have misspent your time, and squandered hours which God gave you to serve him and save souls, in vain amusements or foolish conversation, reading novels, or doing nothing; cases where you have misapplied your talents and powers of mind; where you have squandered money on your lusts, or spent it for things you did not need, and which neither contributed to your health, comfort or usefulness.  

11. BAD TEMPER

Perhaps you have abused your wife, or your children, or your family, or servants, or neighbors.  Write it all down.

12. HINDERING OTHERS FROM BEING USEFUL

Perhaps you have weakened their influence by insinuations against them.  You have not only robbed God of your own talents, but tied the hands of somebody else.  What a wicked servant is he that loiters himself, and hinders the rest!  This is done sometimes by taking their time needlessly; sometimes by destroying Christian confidence in them.  Thus you have played into the hands of Satan, and not only showed yourself an idle vagabond, but prevented others from working.

If you find you have committed a fault against an individual, and that individual is within your reach, go and confess it immediately, and get that out of the way.  If the individual you have injured is too far off for you to go and see him, sit down and write him a letter, and confess the injury, pay the postage, and put it into the mail immediately...If you have defrauded any body, send the money, the full amount and the interest.

Go thoroughly to work in all this.  Go now.  Don't put it off; that will only make the matter worse.  Confess to God those sins that have been committed against God, and to man those sins that have been committed against man.  Don't think of getting off by going round the stumbling blocks.  Take them up out of the way.  In breaking up your fallow ground, you must remove every obstruction. 

When you have gone over your whole history in this way, thoroughly, if you will then go over the ground the second time, and give your solemn and fixed attention to it, you will find that the things you have put down will suggest other things of which you have been guilty, connected with them, or near them. Then go over it a third time, and you will recollect other things connected with these…You should go over it as thoroughly and as carefully, and as solemnly, as you would if you were just preparing yourself for the judgment.  As you go over the catalogue of your sins, be sure to resolve upon present and entire reformation.

(Take a pen and paper [or phone] and write down the things the Lord brings to mind.  We will continue to add to this, in the coming daily times of repentance.)

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