Let us face it with humility.  There is such a thing as revival. We do wish it, don´t we?  But wishful thinking amounts to very little, for that is not revival.  Revival is to will it.  To will God, not to feel about Him.

The message of Finney´s "Lectures on Revival" is very simple. Unless your wishes affect the throne of your will, they will not lead to revival.

Do we see the difference?  It may be illustrated this way (and many other ways):  A pastor friend of mine paid me a visit when I was hospitalized.  He said, "I will call on you, once you´re discharged!"  He never showed up.  It was wishful thinking, but he really didn´t will it.

Modern church piety with its hymns, prayers, worships and hallelujahs is little but "Pia Desideria" ("Pious wishes") as the old German pietists talked about, however with much more reality 300 years ago than now.

Finney is very pin pointed in his appeal to our will.  And rightly so.  However, he´s of little use if the revival study doesn´t  go hand in hand with solid gospel teaching,  by  which I mean the way it´s unfolded in the Romans where the apostle is dealing with "wishful thinking" too.
 
The despair in Rom. 7 is about a born again believer who wishes  under a legalistic sway to do good prompted by "the inward man" (his new divine nature), but he finds himself powerless.  The wishes are there.  The Greek verb "telo" means to wish, and that´s the word he uses.

The deliverance is Christ when it comes to our guilt, but in Rom. 7 and 8 also when it comes to being delivered from the power of sin by His indwelling Holy Spirit.  So when the good wishes are replaced by our will leaning on the Spirit of Christ, the revival dawn is not far away.

Finney is very definite about the will at the same time warning against condoning sin, including our darling sins.  But that, too, involves the will which is more than a wish to live a better life.

Rom. 7 is about our powerlessness.  Rom. 8 is about the indwelling power of the Spirit. We don´t jump from Rom. 7 to 8.  Both is our honest, current experience. 

August 2, 2017 - jn