Over the years I have picked up a number of wonderful Christian books which, it appears, are long out of print. I would like to read some of these aloud and to post them on Sermon Audio. One of those books is "The Apostles of the North" by Norman Macfarlane. This a book that radiates Gospel enthusiasm. I have visited many of these places and worked and worshipped in some areas. I have sat under the ministry there, of men who still, today, preached and labour in the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
Scotland is a country with a remarkable Christian History, during and since the the timeof the Reformation. We need a new John Knox to be raised up today. We do well to study the sufferings of the Coventanters who followed after teh Reformation and who loved not their own lives, even unto death in the service of being faithful to the Lord Jesus Christ.
In the 18th Century, the tales of the Erskine brothers whose writings breath evangelical warmth, and of the Great Awakening including the Kilsyth and Cambuslang Revivals, fill the heart with joy. Then at the end of the Eighteenth Century there was the remarkable revival under the preaching of the brothers Haldane, which also lead on to the "Second Reformation" in Geneva.
The the struggles, sacrifices, and sufferings surrounding the Disruption of the Church of Scotland of the Nineteenth Century and the formation of the Free Church of Scotland gives great cause for magnifying the Wisdom of God.
The 1949 Revivals on the Isle of Lewis are remarkable above measure, jaw dropping, and reading about them causes us to cry to God to "Do it again!". I myself was there on the West Coast of the Isle of Lewis in the late 1980s, and there was still an afterglow of God's presence that caused people to creep from the house with Holy awe.
Some areas particularly have been remarkalby blessed. Macfarlane's book focuses on the Highlands and the Lews, or Island of Lewis. It demonstrates the mighty impact of a holy man of God on the people. All of these men were different, but all were consecrated to God, and to the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
For years, I had the privilege of preaching the Gospel throughout the length and breadth of Scotland. We had many open air meetings in Aberdeen and Glasgow. There are many stories one could recount, but there was never the blessing of former generations. I love Scotland as a country passionately. Yet I mourn and lament the loss of Gospel truth and turning away from the Bible in the current climate.
May God be pleased to visit that country once more, and raise up His cause amongst an unworthy people (we are all unworthy), whom He has, in times past, blessed and loved in such great measure.
David.