09/08/2026
🔥 CHARLES FINNEY SAID THE HOLY SPIRIT CAME UPON HIM LIKE A “WAVE OF ELECTRICITY”
Before Charles G. Finney became one of the great revivalists of the nineteenth century, he was a young lawyer wrestling deeply with God. In 1821, after intense conviction and prayer, Finney surrendered himself to Christ. But what happened later that day in his law office became one of the most remarkable experiences he would record in his autobiography.
Finney had been alone in the office. The fire he had built was nearly burned out, and as he turned to sit down beside it, something completely unexpected happened.
Finney wrote:
“I received a mighty baptism of the Holy Ghost.”
He said he had not been expecting such an experience. The Holy Spirit seemed to descend upon him and pass through him “body and soul.” Finney described the sensation as being like a wave of electricity going through him.
Then the waves kept coming.
He described them as “waves and waves of liquid love” and said the presence of God became so overwhelming that he began weeping aloud with joy. The experience continued until Finney cried out to God that he could bear no more.
Eventually, a member of the church choir came into the law office and found Finney loudly weeping.
“Mr. Finney, what ails you?” the man asked.
Finney couldn't answer him at first.
“Are you in pain?”
Finney finally gathered himself enough to answer:
“No, but so happy that I cannot live.”
The man left the office and returned a few minutes later with one of the elders of the church, whose shop was almost directly across the street.
Finney described this elder as an extremely serious man. In fact, Finney said he had scarcely ever seen him laugh.
The elder walked into the office, saw Finney still overwhelmed by what had happened, and asked him how he felt.
Finney began telling him.
Then something unexpected happened to the elder.
Finney wrote that the man fell into “a most spasmodic laughter.” He seemed unable to stop himself from laughing from the very bottom of his heart.
And the scene wasn't finished.
While Finney was telling the men what had happened, another young man entered the office and began listening. As he heard Finney speak, he became overwhelmed with conviction, partly fell to the floor, and cried out:
“Do pray for me!”
They immediately knelt down to pray for him.
This wasn't a story written generations later by people trying to make Finney sound more supernatural. Finney himself recorded the experience in his autobiography.
The lawyer who had surrendered himself to Christ experienced what he personally called a “mighty baptism of the Holy Ghost.” Soon afterward, he walked away from the practice of law and gave himself to preaching the Gospel. His ministry would become associated with extraordinary seasons of revival and the conversion of multitudes that shook America during the Second Great Awakening.
“But ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you.” Acts 1:8
🔥📖 Want to read Charles G. Finney's remarkable story in his own words? Get The Autobiography of Charles G. Finney from Revival Press and read his firsthand accounts of conversion, the baptism of the Holy Ghost, revival, prayer, and the extraordinary work of God he witnessed.
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