UNBLOCKING THE WELL OF THE LIVING WORD

Each daily devotional below begins with an excerpt from a transcript of Duncan Campbell telling the story of how the 1949 Hebridean revival began. (1)

Duncan Campbell said:-

My dear people that was how it began then; that was how it began… then it leapt over the bounds of the parish to neighbouring parishes… we are now addressing meetings through the day… addressing meetings right through the night… I can remember once within 24 hours of addressing eight meetings, crowded churches five times… twice out in a field… once down on the shore where old men came… They were so moved that night… so many of them found the saviour, that we followed them to the shore… there we sang the songs of Zion at 2 o’clock in the morning… before they left for their homes… Oh, my dear people, that was God at work, that’s revival. I remember one man coming to me one night and saying would it be possible for me to visit our parish and I said, well it all depends when I could visit the parish. I think it would be possible for me to go. You could have me between 1 and 2 o’clock in the morning, so it was decided that I should go at 1 o’clock – half past one I arrive there to find a large church, one of the large churches in Lewis, crowded to capacity with many outside… and I spoke there for an hour and then left the church with hundreds crying to God. I say hundreds crying to God for mercy. I left the church and another young man came to me and said, “Mr Campbell there must be between 300 and 500 people in a field down there and the elders are wondering whether you could come down and address them and I went down and I found the crowd and… Oh! It was easy to address them, because the Spirit of God was hovering over us… the Spirit of God was moving, and I see a man lying on the ground… Oh, he is in distress of soul… in terrible distress and then four young girls I would say about 16 years of age, and they came over and knelt down beside him.. And I hear one of them saying, “Listen the Jesus that saved us last night, can save you now”. And that man was saved when four young lasses prayed around him… My dear people, that is revival….

Duncan Campbell tells of addressing 8 meetings within 24 hours. Revival can be intense and the capacity required of the evangelist huge! In 1781, when John Wesley was very old, he wrote, “I must go on; for a dispensation of the gospel is committed to me; and woe is me if I preach not the gospel.”(2) In 1777 he said, “I have travelled all roads by day and by night, for these forty years, and never was interrupted yet.”(3) At one point he was nearly in a shipwreck, but was saved from disaster when travelling by sea to Guernsey. Throughout his 50 years of itinerant ministry he was preserved from serious accidents. He travelled with John Nelson for a short while. At one point at St Ives, while sleeping on the floor, Wesley was using Nelson’s coat as a pillow and Nelson was using Burkitt’s notes on the New Testament as his pillow. At 3am, one morning after suffering this hard bed for a fortnight, Wesley turned over, dug Nelson in the ribs and joked, “Brother Nelson, let us be of good cheer… for the skin is off but on one side yet.” (4) Duncan Wright tried to accompany Wesley, but it was too gruelling an experience. He could not keep up: “As the exercise was too much I gave it up.” (5) In Wesley’s Journal there is an account of the perilous quick sands of the Solway Firth. This may have been too much for Duncan Wright, but at this date Wright was just 30 years of age, while Wesley was 63.

Billy Graham tells how he lost 30lbs weight when preaching at the Haringay crusade for 3 months in London in 1954

Thank you Lord for the inspiration and example of our spiritual forefathers, John Wesley, Duncan Campbell and Billy Graham. Unleash a new wave of firebrands, of young zealots who have the energy, the perseverance and the tenacity to complete the dispensation of restoring the Gospel to the UK to whomsoever they are sent, wherever you call them, whatever the cost.(6)

References

(1) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MXIZOSWvXaE

(2) Wesley, J. A Plain Account of Kingswood School, Vol XIII, 267

(3) Wesley, J. 16th December 1777, 177.

(4) Telford, J. Wesley’s Veterans, Vol 3, 80–81.

(5) Telford, J. Wesley’s Veterans, Vol 2, 39.

(6) Taylor, A. Light the Fire again, 56.