Hmm, I wonder about jurisdictions, wheat - natural law, revival/awakening spiritual - the Holy Spirit.
Finney uses farming in many of his examples of the Christian worker... following Christ's example.
You see I have only begun to lay open this subject to-night. I want to lay it out before you, in the course of these lectures, so that if you will begin and go on to do as I say,
the results will be just as certain as they are when the farmer breaks up a fallow field, and mellows it, and sows his grain. It will be so, if you will only begin in this way, and hold on till all your hardened and callous hearts break up.
Charles G. Finney, Lectures on Revivals of Religion (New York: Leavitt, Lord & Co., 1835), 43.
The means which God has enjoined for the production of a revival, doubtless have a natural tendency to produce a revival. Otherwise God would not have enjoined them.
But means will not produce a revival, we all know, without the blessing of God. No more will grain, when it is sowed, produce a crop without the blessing of God. It is impossible for us to say that there is not as direct an influence or agency from God, to produce a crop of grain, as there is to produce a revival. What are the laws of nature, according to which, it is supposed, that grain yields a crop? They are nothing but the constituted manner of the operations of God. In the Bible, the word of God is compared to grain, and preaching is compared to sowing seed, and the results to the springing up and growth of the crop. And the result is just as philosophical in the one case, as in the other, and is as naturally connected with the cause.
Charles G. Finney, Lectures on Revivals of Religion (New York: Leavitt, Lord & Co., 1835), 12–13.
As I explained last week, the connection between the right use of means for a revival, and a revival, is as philosophically sure as between the right use of means to raise grain, and a crop of wheat. I believe, in fact, it is more certain, and that there are fewer instances of failure. The effect is more certain to follow. Probably the law connecting cause and effect is more undeviating in spiritual than in natural things, and so there are fewer exceptions, as I have before said. The paramount importance of spiritual things makes it reasonable that it should be so.
Take the Bible, the nature of the case, and the history of the church, all together, and you will find fewer failures in the use of means for a revival, than in farming, or any other worldly business. In worldly business there are sometimes cases where counteracting causes annihilate all a man can do. In raising grain, for instance there are cases which are beyond the control of man, such as drought, hard winter, worms, and so on. So in laboring to promote a revival, there may things occur to counteract it, something or other turning up to divert the public attention from religion, which may baffle every effort. But
Charles G. Finney, Lectures on Revivals of Religion (New York: Leavitt, Lord & Co., 1835), 29.
We see the hypocrisy of those who profess to be praying for a revival while they are doing nothing to promote it. There are many who appear to be very zealous in praying for a revival, while they are not doing any thing at all for one. What do they mean. Are they agreed as touching the things they ask for? Certainly not. They cannot be agreed in offering acceptable prayer for a revival until they are prepared TO DO what God requires them to do to promote it.
What would you think of the farmer who should pray for a crop and not plough nor sow? Would you think such prayers pious, or an insult to God?
Charles G. Finney, Lectures on Revivals of Religion (New York: Leavitt, Lord & Co., 1835), 298.
How many times will people tell an awakened sinner that God has begun a good work in him, and he will carry it on. I have known parents talk so with their children, and as soon as they saw their children awakened, give up all former anxiety about them, and settle down at their ease, thinking that now God had begun a good work in their children, he would carry it on. It would be just as rational for a farmer to say so about his grain, and as soon as it comes up out of the ground, say, “Well, God has begun a good work in my field, and he will carry it on.”
What would be thought of a farmer who should neglect to put up his fence, because God had begun the work of giving him a crop of grain?
Charles G. Finney, Lectures on Revivals of Religion (New York: Leavitt, Lord & Co., 1835), 325.
