The following quotes are from the book SCOTLAND SAW HIS GLORY which was published by International Awakening Press in 1995. The quotes are intended to show the nature of true revival, the necessity of preaching and prayer for spiritual awakening, which takes note of the sovereignty of God in sending spiritual awakening.
Once he [John Carstares] assisted at a communion in Kirkintilloch, and the evening proving very stormy, the people lingered in the church. He addressed the waiting congregation “upon believing in Christ; and there was such a mighty power came along with it that either two or three hundred dated their conversion from that discourse.” Upon another occasion about the same time, he was helping at a sacrament at Cadder. “Upon the Sabbath he was wonderfully assisted in his first prayer, and had a strange gale throu all the sermon; and there was a strange motion upon all the hearers.” When he came to serve the table, “all in the house were strangely affected, and glory seemed to fill that house.” Such incidents were not isolated.
Many serious people…were longing much to partake of the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper, and having been at much pains in public preaching and from house to house to prepare them for it…he administered that holy ordinance at Obsdale in the house of the lady dowager of Fowlis. Two ministers assisted, for which one of them had to pay dearly. At the last sermon “there was a great many present, and the eldest Christians there declared they had not been witnesses to the like. In short, there were so many sensible and glorious discoveries made of the Son of Man, and such evident presence of the Master of assemblies this day and the preceding, that the people seemed to be in a transport, and their souls filled with heaven and breathing thither while their bodies were upon the earth; and some were almost at that, whether in the body of out of the body I cannot tell. Even some drops fell on strangers.”…Praying societies had existed since the earlier days of the century; they became exceeding precious when fiery persecution was rolling over the land. The whole time, however, was not propitious for an open movement of religious revival, but whenever the pressure of persecution was removed, the life that was in the people showed itself in the usual way.
It was amazing, he exclaims, “To see a congregation sit with looks so eager, as if they were to eat the words as they came out of the mouth of the preacher; to see the affection which they hear, that there shall be a general sound of a mourning through the whole church upon the extraordinary warmth of expression in the minister, and this not affected and designed, but casual and undissembled.”
He told me himself (and he was a man incapable of vain boasting) that for years afterwards he never preached on the Lord’s Day but some of his people on the ensuing week, at times as many as six or eight, came to him under conviction of sin, asking the way to Jesus….I remember asking him what were the truths in his preaching which seemed to have been specially blessed for producing the awakening, and I could never forget his answer….He told me that the truth which seemed above all others to impress and awaken his people was the dying love of Christ.”
These few stories should help us connect a few dots and turn our minds and hearts to see how God works. We see that praying societies existed from early on in the century and we must not dismiss that point. If we truly desire to see revival in our day we must seek the Lord individually so that He will grant us the desire to pray in groups. If the Lord moves His people to pray then we must count the cost and deny ourselves in order to seek grace at the throne of grace. Until we are a praying people we will not have preaching that will feed the souls of the people and they will then come eagerly to be fed with the words of the living God. People do not want to hear the bare words of a text, they want to hear living words from God. When people are praying, thirsting and hungering for the words of God, the Spirit of God is not far from being poured out. When the Spirit of the living God is poured out, then heaven comes down and glory fills the souls of the people. If we don’t long for that, something is wrong with our souls. If we will not seek the Lord for this, we have to wonder if we have ever tasted and seen that the Lord is good. May the Lord who alone can give revival awaken us to see the true means of revival. We need hearts to seek the Lord and not more man-centered methods drawn from man-centered hearts. He will comes in His own ways.
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