Duncan Campbell preached the following prophetic and fearful plea in 1956 at the Keswick-in-Wales convention, just years after having seen mighty revival on the Isle of Lewis in Scotland, between 1949 and 1952. I do not agree with everything stated therein, but I agree with the heart of it. Sadly, things are far worse now than they were then, but the Lamb is still on His Throne! O may His people look to Him!
“In many quarters there is today a growing conviction that unless God moves, unless there is a demonstration of the supernatural in the midst of men, unless we are moved up into the realm of the Divine, we shall soon find ourselves caught up in a counterfeit movement, but a movement that goes under the name of evangelism. There are ominous signs today that the devil is out to side-track us in the sphere of evangelism, and we are going to become satisfied with something less than Heaven wills to give us. Nothing but a Holy Spirit revival will meet the desperate need of the hour. The early Church, the men of Pentecost, had something beyond mere human influence and human ingenuity. But what do we mean by influence? The sum total of all the forces in our personality – mental, moral, academic, social, and religious. We can have all these, and we can have them at their highest level, and yet be destitute of power. Power, not influence, was the watchword of the early Church.
While at the Keswick Convention, it was my privilege to spend an afternoon with a leader in the foreign mission activity. I was arrested, if not perturbed, by what that man said to me. Here are his words: 'Today we have some Bible schools in our land and they are turning out young men and young women cultured and polished but without power.' Was that a true diagnosis? I want to suggest that he was near to the truth. Polished, yes, we may be polished, we may have culture, but the cry of our day is for power, and that from on high.
I could take you to a little cottage in the Hebrides and introduce you to a young woman. She is not educated. One could not say that she was polished in the sense that we use the word, but I have known that young woman to pray heaven into a community, to pray power into a meeting. I have known that young woman to be so caught in the power of the Holy Spirit that men and women around her were made to tremble – not influence, but power. The Apostles were not men of influence, 'not many mighty, not many noble.' Oh, no, the Master Himself did not choose to be a man of influence. 'He made Himself of no reputation,' all of which is equal to saying that God chose power rather than influence. I sometimes think of Paul and Silas yonder in Philippi. Why? They had not enough influence to keep them out of prison, but possessed the power of God in such a manner that their prayers in prison shook the whole prison to its very foundations. Not influence, but power.
Oh, that the Church today, in our congregations and in our pulpits, would rediscover this truth and get back to the place of God realization, to the place of power. I want to say further that we should seek power even at the expense of influence. What do I mean by that? I mean this: never compromise to accommodate the devil. I hear people say today, 'these are different days from the days of the 1859 Revival or the Welsh Revival. We must be tolerant and we must try to accommodate.' In order to do that it is necessary at times to lower our standard and seek the cooperation of those who do not accept the position that we hold relative to evangelical truth. THE SECRET OF POWER IS SEPARATION FROM ALL THAT IS UNCLEAN. For me there is nothing so unclean as the liberal views held by some today. We dare not touch them. I am stating what to me is a deep-seated conviction: 'Come out from among them and be ye separate... and touch not the unclean thing, and I will receive you, and will be a Father unto you.' [2 Corinthians 6:17-18]
Yes, we must seek power even at the expense of influence. Think again of the great Apostle Paul. What an opportunity he had of gaining influence with Felix. Had he but flattered him a little in his sin, he could have made a great impression and I believe he could have got a handsome donation for his missionary effort by being tolerant, by accommodating the situation. Paul chose power before influence and he reasoned of sin, of righteousness, and of judgment. Let Felix say what he will, let Drusilla think as she chooses to think, I must be true to my conscience and to my inner convictions and declare the whole counsel of God and take my stand on the solid ground of separation unto God.
Now the person who will take his stand on that ground will not be popular. He will not be popular with some preachers of today who declare that we must soft-pedal in order to capture and captivate. Here I would quote from the saintly Finney: 'Away with your milk and water preaching of the love of Christ that has no holiness or moral discrimination in it, away with the preaching a Christ not crucified for sin.' Such a collapse of moral conscience in this land could never have happened if the Puritan element in our preaching had not, in a great measure, fallen out.
Here is the quotation from a Highland minister preaching on this very truth. He cried: 'Bring me a God all mercy but not just, bring me a God all love but not righteous, and I will have no scruples in calling Him an idiot of your imagination.' Strong words, but I say words that I would sound throughout our land today, in this age of desperate apostasy, forsaking all the fundamental truths of Scripture. Here you have the Apostles proclaiming a message that was profoundly disturbing. We are afraid of disturbing people today. You must not have their emotions stirred, you must not have people weeping in a meeting, you must not have people rolling on the floor under conviction of sin. Keep things orderly. May God help us, may God have mercy upon us. Who are we to dictate to Almighty God as to how He is going to work? If God chooses to move in that way, if God chooses to so convict men and women of their sin that they will be about to lose their reason, I say, God move on until we can see again what was witnessed in the Edwards Revival, in the Finney Revival, in the Fifty-nine Revival, in the Welsh Revival, and, praise God, today in the Hebrides Revival – God moving in supernatural reality.
Then there are those who say, 'but we must not frighten people.' I would to God that a wave of real godly fear gripped our land. Let me quote from a sermon delivered by the Rev. Robert Barr, B.D., of the Presbyterian Church of South Africa: 'This is what our age needs, not an easy-moving message, the sort of thing that makes the hearer feel all nice inside, but a message profoundly disturbing. WE HAVE BEEN FAR TOO AFRAID OF DISTURBING PEOPLE, BUT THE HOLY SPIRIT WILL HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH A MESSAGE OR WITH A MINISTER WHO IS AFRAID OF DISTURBING. You might as well expect a surgeon to give place to a quack who claims to be able to do the job with some sweet tasting drug, as expect the Holy Spirit to agree that the tragic plight of human souls today can be met by soft and easy words. Calvary was anything but nice to look at, blood-soaked beams of wood, a bruised and bleeding body, not nice to look upon. But then Jesus was not dealing with a nice thing; He was dealing with the sin of the world, and that is what we are called upon to deal with today. Soft and easy words, soft-pedaling will never meet the need.'” (The Price and Power of REVIVAL -Duncan Campbell)
~ Copied from fb post of Ryan Ringnald
“In many quarters there is today a growing conviction that unless God moves, unless there is a demonstration of the supernatural in the midst of men, unless we are moved up into the realm of the Divine, we shall soon find ourselves caught up in a counterfeit movement, but a movement that goes under the name of evangelism. There are ominous signs today that the devil is out to side-track us in the sphere of evangelism, and we are going to become satisfied with something less than Heaven wills to give us. Nothing but a Holy Spirit revival will meet the desperate need of the hour. The early Church, the men of Pentecost, had something beyond mere human influence and human ingenuity. But what do we mean by influence? The sum total of all the forces in our personality – mental, moral, academic, social, and religious. We can have all these, and we can have them at their highest level, and yet be destitute of power. Power, not influence, was the watchword of the early Church.
While at the Keswick Convention, it was my privilege to spend an afternoon with a leader in the foreign mission activity. I was arrested, if not perturbed, by what that man said to me. Here are his words: 'Today we have some Bible schools in our land and they are turning out young men and young women cultured and polished but without power.' Was that a true diagnosis? I want to suggest that he was near to the truth. Polished, yes, we may be polished, we may have culture, but the cry of our day is for power, and that from on high.
I could take you to a little cottage in the Hebrides and introduce you to a young woman. She is not educated. One could not say that she was polished in the sense that we use the word, but I have known that young woman to pray heaven into a community, to pray power into a meeting. I have known that young woman to be so caught in the power of the Holy Spirit that men and women around her were made to tremble – not influence, but power. The Apostles were not men of influence, 'not many mighty, not many noble.' Oh, no, the Master Himself did not choose to be a man of influence. 'He made Himself of no reputation,' all of which is equal to saying that God chose power rather than influence. I sometimes think of Paul and Silas yonder in Philippi. Why? They had not enough influence to keep them out of prison, but possessed the power of God in such a manner that their prayers in prison shook the whole prison to its very foundations. Not influence, but power.
Oh, that the Church today, in our congregations and in our pulpits, would rediscover this truth and get back to the place of God realization, to the place of power. I want to say further that we should seek power even at the expense of influence. What do I mean by that? I mean this: never compromise to accommodate the devil. I hear people say today, 'these are different days from the days of the 1859 Revival or the Welsh Revival. We must be tolerant and we must try to accommodate.' In order to do that it is necessary at times to lower our standard and seek the cooperation of those who do not accept the position that we hold relative to evangelical truth. THE SECRET OF POWER IS SEPARATION FROM ALL THAT IS UNCLEAN. For me there is nothing so unclean as the liberal views held by some today. We dare not touch them. I am stating what to me is a deep-seated conviction: 'Come out from among them and be ye separate... and touch not the unclean thing, and I will receive you, and will be a Father unto you.' [2 Corinthians 6:17-18]
Yes, we must seek power even at the expense of influence. Think again of the great Apostle Paul. What an opportunity he had of gaining influence with Felix. Had he but flattered him a little in his sin, he could have made a great impression and I believe he could have got a handsome donation for his missionary effort by being tolerant, by accommodating the situation. Paul chose power before influence and he reasoned of sin, of righteousness, and of judgment. Let Felix say what he will, let Drusilla think as she chooses to think, I must be true to my conscience and to my inner convictions and declare the whole counsel of God and take my stand on the solid ground of separation unto God.
Now the person who will take his stand on that ground will not be popular. He will not be popular with some preachers of today who declare that we must soft-pedal in order to capture and captivate. Here I would quote from the saintly Finney: 'Away with your milk and water preaching of the love of Christ that has no holiness or moral discrimination in it, away with the preaching a Christ not crucified for sin.' Such a collapse of moral conscience in this land could never have happened if the Puritan element in our preaching had not, in a great measure, fallen out.
Here is the quotation from a Highland minister preaching on this very truth. He cried: 'Bring me a God all mercy but not just, bring me a God all love but not righteous, and I will have no scruples in calling Him an idiot of your imagination.' Strong words, but I say words that I would sound throughout our land today, in this age of desperate apostasy, forsaking all the fundamental truths of Scripture. Here you have the Apostles proclaiming a message that was profoundly disturbing. We are afraid of disturbing people today. You must not have their emotions stirred, you must not have people weeping in a meeting, you must not have people rolling on the floor under conviction of sin. Keep things orderly. May God help us, may God have mercy upon us. Who are we to dictate to Almighty God as to how He is going to work? If God chooses to move in that way, if God chooses to so convict men and women of their sin that they will be about to lose their reason, I say, God move on until we can see again what was witnessed in the Edwards Revival, in the Finney Revival, in the Fifty-nine Revival, in the Welsh Revival, and, praise God, today in the Hebrides Revival – God moving in supernatural reality.
Then there are those who say, 'but we must not frighten people.' I would to God that a wave of real godly fear gripped our land. Let me quote from a sermon delivered by the Rev. Robert Barr, B.D., of the Presbyterian Church of South Africa: 'This is what our age needs, not an easy-moving message, the sort of thing that makes the hearer feel all nice inside, but a message profoundly disturbing. WE HAVE BEEN FAR TOO AFRAID OF DISTURBING PEOPLE, BUT THE HOLY SPIRIT WILL HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH A MESSAGE OR WITH A MINISTER WHO IS AFRAID OF DISTURBING. You might as well expect a surgeon to give place to a quack who claims to be able to do the job with some sweet tasting drug, as expect the Holy Spirit to agree that the tragic plight of human souls today can be met by soft and easy words. Calvary was anything but nice to look at, blood-soaked beams of wood, a bruised and bleeding body, not nice to look upon. But then Jesus was not dealing with a nice thing; He was dealing with the sin of the world, and that is what we are called upon to deal with today. Soft and easy words, soft-pedaling will never meet the need.'” (The Price and Power of REVIVAL -Duncan Campbell)
~ Copied from fb post of Ryan Ringnald