Why we must go back to prayer, Pt. 2

Continued from Why we must go back to prayer:

Charles Finney labored in Rome from Christmas 1825 – to February 1826 and 284 people gave their lives to Christ.

The key to this anointing in Finney’s own words:

“If during the outbreak of a Holy Spirit invasion anything occurred that had potential to endanger, hurt, or hinder the work, if there was any appearance of any root of self-righteousness or bitterness in the people, or a tendency toward extremism or emotional disorder, the leaders and the people would take the alarm and immediately give themselves to fervent prayer that God would direct and control all things. And in many instances it was surprising to see to what extent and by what methods God would remove or change the obstacles, people, and attitudes to protect the work.”

“In regard to my own laboring, I will say that unless I had the Spirit of prayer I could do nothing. If even for a day or an hour I lost the Spirit of faith and “grace and supplication,” I found myself unable to preach with power and anointing, or to win souls by personal conversation. In this regard my experience at that time was what it has been my whole life.

“I found myself having more of less power in preaching and personal labors to the degree that I had a Spirit of prevailing prayer. I found that unless I kept myself and was also kept by God in such an intimacy with Him daily, and hourly, so that I could access Him in prayer, my efforts to win souls were abortive. But when I prevailed with God in prayer, I could prevail with men in preaching, exhortation and sharing personally.

“I those early years I had wonderful faith given to me, and I had some experiences that shook and alarmed me. When alone in prayer I would wrestle and struggle, and my faith would rise until I would cry out to God that, “He made a promise to answer prayer, and I could not and would not be denied.” I would be so expectant and fervent that I would use such bold prayers because I felt so certain that He would hear me and that in His faithfulness to His promises and to Himself it made it impossible for Him not to hear and to answer.”

“At that time the Holy Spirit made such application of the promises of God to my heart, and so revealed their full meaning as to lead me to understand them and use them in each situation I faced. I frequently saw that the New Testament writers often quoted the Old Testament promises in such a way as to cover way more ground than the mere letter of the promise would have warranted. But my experience in this early breakthrough was certainly extraordinary. I cannot tell you how absurd unbelief looked to me and how certain it was in my heart that God would answer.

“And those prayers from day to day and from hour to hour I found myself offering in such an agony and faith. I had no idea in my mind what the shape of the answer would be, or the exact time of the answer. But my impression was that the answer was near, and I felt myself strengthened in Divine life to put on the harness for a mighty conflict with the powers of darkness, and expected soon to see a far more powerful outpouring of the Spirit of God in that place where I was laboring.” (Charles Finney, about 1825)