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:-

“From that meeting, I went back, back to Barvas, and when we arrived at the manse the minister was with me and we heard that there was a farmer that was in great distress of soul. Now, this man had not been near a church for 12 years; he just lived for his cattle and horses. He lived for the earth, but he had a godly wife and a godly daughter and they were concerned about him. They invited me, prior to this incident, to the farm and I spoke to the old man and he said, “Oh well I may turn up at the church sometime”. Thereto, he was seen after that walking down to the church and one of the elders saw him and he was in the suit he was married in and the church was so crowded that he had to sit on the pulpit steps that were quite near to me. God spoke to him and he was in a fearful state and he was crying and repeating, “God, hell is too good for me, hell is too good for me”. Oh, that we could see conviction… There is one thing that I’ve been crying for, after this conference, that conviction of sin will get men and women prostrated in the presence God… Oh, give it to us… give it to us. That night after being at this field meeting I, along the elder and the minister, went to the farm and we found every room in the farm house packed with people praying. They were praying for the farmer; they were afraid that he would go mental, so I said to his wife, “Where is Donald,” and she said, “he’s down in the room; he is in a terrible state. Oh, may God have mercy on him”. She was speaking truth, “may God have mercy on a mighty sinner”, and we went down the passage and she went gently through the door and there the farmer was on his knees repenting saying, “God can you have mercy on me, I seem to feel that hell is too good for me”. There he is, and we are standing at the door and he seems quite unconscious of us being there. Then his wife spoke, and you needn’t laugh at this, I’m just stating a fact, the wife spoke and this is what she said, “There’s the mighty sinner and may he take his belly full off it!” What does she mean? Oh, she was crying to God that God would so shake him out of his sin… that his experience of God would be real… let him stew in his conviction.. In the words of Mary Morris, “Let them stew in their conviction leave them there”. Oh, how often I heard her say that during the Lewis revival… Leave them there… Let God deal with it… I sometimes feel people… that we take things out of the hand of God by our counselling… Oh, that we might get to the place where there is an implicit confidence in God… where we leave the work to Him. The following night he asked for a meeting in the house… in the morning God met with him in a glorious deliverance and he asked for a prayer meeting.”

Roy Hession, of the East African revival says, ‘As we look honestly at our Christian lives, we can see how much of self there is in each of us. As long as self is in control, God can do little with us. Being broken is both God’s work and ours. He brings His pressure to bear, but we have to make the choice. If we are really open to conviction as we seek fellowship with God (and willingness for the light is the prime condition of fellowship with God), God will show us the expressions of this proud hard self that causes him pain. Then it is, we stiffen our necks and refuse to repent, or we can bow the head and say “Yes, Lord.” Brokenness in daily experience is simply the response of humility to the conviction of God.’(2) Roy Hession says, ‘We are not likely to be broken except at the cross of Jesus Christ. The willingness of Jesus to be broken for us is the all-compelling motive in our being broken too. We see Him, who is in the form of God, counting not equality with God a prize to be grasped at and hung on to, but letting it go, for us and taking upon Him the form of a Servant – God’s Servant, man’s Servant. We see him willing to have no rights of his own, no home of his own, no possessions of his own, willing to let men revile him, willing to let men tread on him and retaliate himself.’(3) We need a greater vision of that love that was willing to be broken for us. Lord, Bend that proud and stiff-necked I, Help me to bow the head and die, Beholding Him on Calvary, Who bowed His head for me.(4)

Psalm 51:1 Have mercy on me, Oh God, according to your steadfast love, according to your abundant mercy blot out my transgression.

References

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

(2) Hession, R. The Calvary Road. Rickford Hills (2003): p4.

(3) Hession, R. The Calvary Road.p3.

(4) Hession, R. The Calvary Road: p4.