The Lewis Revival 1949 - Part 7

And he would speak tenderly to these people. And there in the tenderness, they would just be broken. And seeking God.

Sometimes they would go from that place, and they would not be saved. They would go on seeking God for a week, for a month, even for longer. For two months, for three months, longer than that.

Seeking God until they came through. The thundering prophet, said Maggie Mary, became the tender shepherd. When he spoke to seekers in the scattering, he used to read from John 10, my sheep hear my voice, and give such gentle and compassionate advice before praying with them.

He never went through the biblical points or steps to God. He would let them seek God. In the pulpit he was dynamic, but when he spoke to seekers in the after meeting, he was as gentle as a lamb.

I will say a few words on the simplicity of his salvation, he said. He was a different man altogether. He helped people, he explained, and the people loved him.

What about the phenomenon? Mary says of this phenomenon, and this is a very important statement. Listen. We saw physical phenomena.

They did happen, but they were not sent. The awareness of the presence of God was sent. The phenomena were peripheral.

The physical phenomena were not distracted, because it was all happening in an atmosphere. Now that is a very important statement. Today, on many occasions, we have the phenomena sent, the laughing, the whatever else.

Let's put that in the center. That was not the case then. It was the presence of God.

And one of the main things that happened was trances or faintings. People fell unconscious to the fullness of the revelation that was brought to them. And their faces were radiant, they reflected the visions of which they beheld.

I've seen on a number of occasions, says Martin MacDonald, this happening. No one understands these experiences except those who are moved by them. So it happened on a number of occasions.

There were these times of trances. Kenny MacDonald says, on some occasions, some fell into a trance for the duration of the meeting. They would not be a disturbance at all, but would sit silently with hands upraised.

When they came round at the end of the meeting, their words seemed to have the scent of heaven. We were awed at times, and at other times they simply left the meeting with us all, having met with God personally in this unusual way. It was no hindrance to the Pope, and the Pope regarded it as something which was a characteristic of the workings of the Spirit.

There was house shaking, trances, on two occasions, one in 39 and one in 49. The house shook, one in point and one in arm. They were in a prayer meeting and the house shook.

Powerful. Somebody said to them, Mr. Campbell, an earthquake? Yes, he said. And when they went out they found that no other house had shaken.

There was heavenly music. I can tell you some of these things. I told you last night, here, at this Bible college, they heard the heavenly music in 1936.

Wave after wave passing over the college as they were in prayer. Constantine Manning told us in Arnley, he said, my brother and I were sitting at the bottom of the stairs. The place was full, the house was full.

And the minister's wife was sitting at the door. And the preacher, Campbell, was up and down, walking here and there so that people could hear. So, she said, suddenly I heard marvellous music.

It was coming out from underneath the stairs. And it was going slowly across the foyer, the frontage of the house. I looked at my brother, my brother looked at me, and we listened to this marvellous music or singing or whatever it was, this wonderful sound.

She said, I couldn't distinguish, I couldn't understand it. It just went on and on, slowly to the door, and out of the door, in the presence of God. And she said, we looked at each other, and we saw the minister's wife looking at us, because she saw that we heard.

She tiptoed across to us and she said, did you hear that too? Not everybody could go on about that. Light. Sometimes they were walking, and one group of young people were walking, and suddenly they realised they were walking in light, in the darkness.

And she said, look, look, where does this come from? And they looked up and she said, it seemed as if the heavens were open, and the light came right across, on the road, and they walked in the light. Amazing manifestation. But they were not to be emphasised, they just happened as... They weren't a big issue.

They were just part of the scene. There were visions, and there was no age gap. There was no generation gap.

Visions and dreams, I want you to go into that. There was no age gap at all. Mary says, we gathered in many homes, but there was one which drew us like a magnet, the home of a little hunchback man named John.

He had never gone to school, and all he had learned, he had taught himself, when as young converts we used to visit him, the first thing he would do is to put away the clock. And he said, now let's just forget about the time. That little hunchback man would sit back on his seat, and begin to talk about Calvary.

There was no difference between old and young, they were bound. He had the face of an angel, after singing and praying and listening to this man of God, who would come creeping back into our houses in the early hours, witnessing. Margaret MacDonald said, we spoke to everybody about the Lord, and it was so easy, words just flowed so naturally, whether we were speaking to old or young, whether we were converting or unconverting.

Witnessing. Song writing. Many songs came out of this revival.

As they say, many men from Barber said, my sister Margaret wrote 30 daily songs, and they've gone to ghettos all over the world. And let me close with how it all continued. When we came to Uwe, says Margaret MacDonald, the wife of the minister, when we came to Uwe, we found that all the office bearers in the church had been saved in the revival.

Not only were they converted, but they continued steadfastly to follow the Lord, and became stable pillars in the church. Duncan says, I, with several ministers from the south, visited Uwe, Bernard, Barber, Arnold, and met with the converts of the movement. We were greatly cheered and encouraged to find them all going on and growing in grace, and to God's glory, we can report that not one in the district's mention has gone back.

Of all the hundreds who came in the two and a half years that have now passed, only four of the hundreds who have professed have gone back. Well, I've delivered my soul. This has been a costly business.

We need God. We need God in our homes. We need God when we get on our knees.

We need God in our meetings. Oh, how I get hurt sometimes. I want to leave a meeting after a church meeting and say, oh, where is God? God.

Oh, God. May God bring us to the place where He can pour out His Spirit once again upon us. Let's bow.

Now, Father, we need now to go into a season of prayer. We need now to humble ourselves before the face of Almighty. We need now to seek Thy face.

Preserve the impressions that have been made on all our hearts. Oh, God, meet with us, that we might have revival in our whole hearts through Jesus Christ. Amen.