As we draw towards the close of another year and look back, it is obvious that religion and morality in the Western world have continued on the downward trajectory they have followed for many decades. The Bible – the Word of God – is increasingly rejected as an authority of any kind; God Himself is despised and His Commandments are treated as if they had no authority whatever. Attendance on public worship goes on decreasing in most churches, even where great efforts are made to make that “worship” attractive to the carnal mind. Many sins are becoming more prevalent, not least those forbidden by the Seventh Commandment. There has always been a degree of immorality, but now immorality has become almost totally shameless. Even what is unnatural is flaunted by the media and celebrated in huge Pride marches. A false morality demands not only that unnatural lust be tolerated, but affirmed, causing serious problems for some people, in the course of their work for instance.
Yet God still says to everyone: “Thou shalt not commit adultery”. Man has been in rebellion against God almost from the very beginning, when Adam rejected the authority of his Creator’s command; but there is a particular degree of rebelliousness today. As perhaps never before – certainly in Western countries – people are trying to live as if there is no God. But there most definitely is a God, whose revelation of Himself in Scripture may be summed up in the words of The Shorter Catechism: “God is a Spirit, infinite, eternal, and unchangeable, in His being, wisdom, power, holiness, justice, goodness, and truth” (Ans 4). Never, probably, have more copies of the Scriptures been available, and certainly never before have they been available in more of the world’s languages – which is something very positive, and a great blessing for that time when “all the ends of the earth shall see the salvation of our God” (Is 52:10).
Yet, at present, God is more and more removing the restraint that He imposes, in one degree or another, in every generation. He is leaving this generation to itself to a greater extent than has been seen for many generations. What we very much need is that the Lord, in infinite mercy, would
pour out His Spirit in abundance. Then there will be a widespread willingness to acknowledge God, to search His Scriptures, to trust in Him at all times, and to ask Him: “What wilt Thou have me to do?” (Acts 9:6).
In the past, and in restricted areas, there have been times of great gospel blessing. The scene in Jerusalem, on the Day of Pentecost, should quickly spring to mind as an obvious example – when 3000 souls obtained mercy.
The time of the Reformation in the sixteenth century was a time of widespread revival. We may notice John Knox’s description of the effects of George Wishart’s preaching: “Master George was required to come to the Kirk of Mauchline, as he did. But the Sheriff of Ayr caused [men to come to] the Kirk for the preservation of a tabernacle [which held the “host”] that was there, beautiful to the eye. Some zealous [men] of the parish, among whom was Hugh Campbell of Kinyearncluch, offended that they should be debarred [from] their parish kirk, concluded by force to enter. But Master George withdrew Hugh Campbell, and said unto him: ‘Brother, Christ Jesus is as potent upon the fields as in the Kirk. He Himself oftener preached in the desert, at the sea side, and in other places judged profane [non-religious], than He did in the Temple of Jerusalem. It is the word of peace that God sends by me. The blood of no man shall be shed this day for the preaching of it.’
“So, withdrawing the whole people, he came to a dyke . . . upon the southwest side of Mauchline, upon which he ascended, the multitudes standing and sitting about him. God gave the day pleasing and hot, and he continued in preaching more than three hours. In that sermon, God wrought so wonderfully with him that one of the most wicked men in the country, Lawrence Rankin . . . was converted. The tears ran from his eyes in such abundance that all men wondered. His conversion was without hypocrisy, for his life and conversation witnessed it in all times to come.”1 Knox only mentions one convert; very possibly there were others; certainly there were many others who, during the years leading up to 1560 in various parts of Scotland, turned from dead works to serve the living God.
Another example of an outpouring of the Spirit was in 1742. In Scotland, particularly prominent was the revival in two districts not far from Glasgow, Kilsyth and Cambuslang. James Robe, parish minister of Kilsyth, had for two years been preaching on the new birth and the work of the Holy Spirit; while William M’Culloch, minister of the Cambuslang parish had preached for almost a year on regeneration, besides holding many prayer meetings.
“The whole neighbourhood soon appeared to be wrapped in a flame of spiritual influence. Distress for sin fell on great numbers, who sometimes manifested their emotion in convulsive sobbings and protestations most difficult
1Knox, The History of the Reformation in Scotland, London, 1898 reprint, p 54.
to subdue. When they apprehended the grace of God in Christ, their distress was followed by a peace and joy in believing of almost rapturous intensity, and a marvellous relish for the word and ordinances of God. And according to the testimony of those most cognisant of the movement, the change effected on the subjects of the awakening was highly beneficial, not only in its religious but in its moral and social aspects. Where vice had prevailed, it was abandoned, injuries were forgiven, estranged families reconciled, restoration made of property that had been unjustly appropriated, and a new conscientiousness manifested in matters where before there had been much remissness.”2 Large numbers of people were brought into the kingdom of God in these two places, many of whom had travelled from some distance to hear the Word preached, but there was also significant gospel blessing in many other parts of the country at that time.
In the nineteenth century, Kilsyth in particular was to see, in 1839, a further significant work of grace, under William Burns, the local minister. Prominent among those who assisted him in the work of that time was his son William Chalmers Burns. The younger Burns was to go to China as a missionary, but he was only one of a large number of missionaries who went to various parts of the world in an attempt to bring sinners, who were then walking in heathen darkness, into the glorious liberty of the children of God. This was a time when Christianity was expanding rapidly, when significant numbers of sinners were being rescued in areas where Satan’s kingdom had been carrying all before it.
Yet that same nineteenth century saw the seeds being sown of many of the unbelieving forces that have caused so much damage in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Some of that damage has already been referred to in this article; it shows us, in very brief compass, where we are today. Yet we must not despair; God is still working. He is still bringing sinners out of darkness into God’s marvellous light; He is still building up His people in their most holy faith and preparing them for heaven.
But what we have also seen – in references to previous centuries – is that God is able to do wonderful things on a much wider scale than we, at least in the Western world, are seeing today. How will that take place? It will be by the same means as are being used today where the gospel is faithfully preached. There will no doubt be increased earnestness and prayerfulness, but it will be as, in the time of the apostles, “it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe” (1 Cor 1:21). Let us then seek grace to pray that the Lord would pour out His Spirit on a large scale and send out many to preach the gospel to this needy generation.
2William G Blaikie, The Preachers of Scotland, Banner of Truth reprint, 2001, p 257.