Hi Mark,

That statement caused me to pause as well. Not knowing all of Finney's theology I would need to read through it a bit more before I comment, but I can see why that statement could cause problems :)

Blessings,

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William

I could be wrong in my understanding of what brother Finney was sayin but I read it as a believer who has been lazy in their growth and while they were "indwelled" by the spirit they were never "filled" with the spirit yet had every reason and opportunity to be so.

I say this because of the order of context in which he makes that statement but again I could be mistaken.

Finney was a stickler for his systematic theology and being a lawyer he did well in separating the "literals" from the "potentials" and divided the word quite well by my resoning. After studying many of the great evangelist, Finney came the closest by far to my own personal conclusions.

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Fletcher

awakened,
I think I don't understand the doctrine here. I thought that at the moment I surrendered my life to Christ and was born again I received the Holy Spirit to remain in me, teach me guide me. If I continuously grieve the HS he will guiding and teaching me less, and if I remain in sin I will eventually ignore Him, which makes my conscience seared and I become so hardened that I will insult Him and blaspheme Him. If I am not filled with the spirit what's the use that I have Him? We have the spirit so we can be filled with him all the time. I don't think that the article meant to say that we are being in and out of the Kingdom according to our daily mistakes/repentance, but if we neglect wanting to obey and be filled, eventually we find ourselves without the spirit and lost.
So not being filled with the spirit in my opinion can result in loosing Him entirely and our salvation. This is what I think now and I am open to correction. I also do not understand the Pentecostal teachings about having the spirit/baptized with the spirit/filled with the spirit although I always went to Pentecostal charismatic churches, and used to speak tongues without which (they said) I don't have the spirit.
What I know now is that I have the spirit because He is teaching and guiding me from the moment I became a christian. However there were times when I did not pay attention to Him at all.
What did you mean when you said:

Hi guys,
My wife called me from the zero turn lawn mower and said I have to spend less time on SI and more time doing work. Okay that was a joke. Shes not on the zero turn, are you crazy...I make her use the push mower:-) Ok I'll stop, but I really have soooo much work today and yet I really enjoy these kinds of fruitful discussions. What to do?!!!

Anyway, I personally believe that a person can "lose" their salvation. I think that in simple terms this is what Finney is saying. How, where, why and when we can come to this state as a professing christian is the trillion dollar question and we could argue over the semantics of this issue until Jesus came back.

Suffice to say I only know what I know. At some time in my life I "lost" the Holy Spirit. God spoke to me in a vision and showed me the true state of my life. It was a life altering experience and has forever changed my outlook on christianity and this "salvation" that we think we have all figured out. This is my personal testimony and I do not lay any heavy burden on anyone else. But it is true, I am convinced of it, that even though I professed Christ, I had somehow lost the connection, lost the Spirit, had wandered away from it. I had become a hypocrite and although others thought I had Gods life, I knew after that vision what was really going on in my life. I was lost, unsaved...devoid of the Spirit. Exactly the kind of christian that Finney is speaking of in the lecture.

And you know what? I am under no illusions that it could never happen again. This is why we need the ministry of brothers like Finney and others like him. These voices are all but lost in this country and others and as a result the church had fallen asleep.

There go I but for Gods grace.

Lets pray.
"Dear Lord, revive our hearts as we seek to come back into a place of true hunger for You and You alone. Revive all of us here on SI Lord and help us to hunger and thirst for the Water of Life, to grow weary of this world and all that is in it, and to sup with you. Dear Lord do an new things in our hearts today, all of us. Forgive us for arguing and being petty with one another. Amen."

Blessings guys, got to go and do some work, you know how it is:-)

Brother your humor is completely out of place in this thread, how could you possibly think that was appropriate???

Ha! Just kidding;)
And actually your humor is well received and appreciated-

As for the rest of your post...
I couldn't agree more, and feel much the same as you regarding not being able to know exactly how or what or when one might lose it but the spirit bears witness in me that it can happen.

And yes I agree the voices like Finney, Booth, Wesley etc... are all but extinct in our time,... but who knows, maybe the Lord has something or someone being prepared in the background and soon to be revealed:)

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Fletcher

It seems Finney did not differentiate as we do, between being born again and then filled with the Spirit, initially and many times over.
A true Christian, per Finney, would be filled with the Spirit. If not, probably not a Christian

Quote: "VI. Consequences of not being filled with the Spirit.

1. You will often doubt, and reasonably doubt, whether you are Christians. You will have doubts, and you ought to have them. The sons of God are led by the Spirit of God. And if you are not led by the Spirit what reason have you to think you are sons? You will try to make a little evidence go a great way to bolster up your hopes, but you cannot do it, unless your conscience is seared as with a hot iron. You cannot help being plunged often into painful doubt and uncertainty about your state. Rom. viii. 9.--"But ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you. Now, if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his." 2 Cor. xiii. 5.--"Examine yourselves whether ye be in the faith; prove your own selves: know ye not your own selves, how that Jesus Christ is in you, except ye be reprobate?"

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William

Well my understanding is that there is a distinct difference between being indwelt and filled...
Indwelling occurs at initial water baptism and is strong and consistent but can be ignored somewhat by immature Christians whereas being filled or baptized is a much stronger and more difficult to resist experience-

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Fletcher

JWF, If the difference is in intensity, could a strong indwelling be the same as a weak baptism? If I understand you well you say that being filled with the HS is synonymous to being baptized in the HS. As we can be filled many times, would you say that we can be baptized many times with the HS?

Hmmmm,...
Well I can only speak from what light I have and with that I'd say no, but again I think sometimes there is differing verbiage assigned to the same thing by peoples in different times or cultures...

How Finney describes being filled is a very accurate depiction of my own experience of being baptized with the spirit. Tho this occurred many years after I initially came to faith in Christ and was water baptized- where when I had only been water baptized the spirit was definitely an influence and helped tremendously tho I wasn't really "on fire" for Jesus. Tho after being baptized with the Spirit it was instant and has for the most part been an unstoppable force. Like nitrous to a race car- the desire to minister and feed on the word is exponentially stronger.

Btw- when I received the baptism of the spirit I not only hadn't asked for it, I didn't even know there was such a thing.

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Fletcher