On 23rd July 1839, something extraordinary occurred in a Presbyterian church in Kilsyth. William Chalmers Burns, who had been converted to Christ in Edinburgh, was preaching to the packed congregation. The people listened attentively to him as he spoke of his Saviour, but then it was like a spiritual dam burst, with a sudden outpouring of weeping, wailing, groaning, and also shouts of praise from some of the Christians there. Burns wrote in his Memoir:
“The appearance of a great part of the people from the pulpit gave me an awfully vivid picture of the state of the ungodly in the day of Christ’s coming to judgement. Some were screaming out in agony; others, and among these strong men, fell to the ground as if they had been dead.”
From that time on it was the topic of conversation in the town. Daily services were held in the church and hundreds would gather for morning prayers in the Market Square. Crowds began to come to Kilsyth to find out what on earth was happening. Later, an open-air communion service was held in September with estimated numbers of 12,000 to 15,000 people in attendance. The phenomena occurred in other churches in town. In response to the message of the gospel among the Methodists “forty or fifty stout able bodied persons fell to the ground as if dead. On being removed to a house, and recovering themselves, they all cried aloud to God for mercy.”
It is not that there was some sort of psychological manipulation going on; there was no use of sensational music, or emotional preaching to whip up the crowds. Burns spoke about a “sweet melting of heart among the audience, and many of the unconverted were weeping bitterly aloud, though I spoke throughout with perfect calmness and solemnity.”
When Dr Thomas Guthrie went to Kilsyth to investigate what was happening, and report back to the churches in Edinburgh, he wrote: “The difficulty at Kilsyth is not, as here, how to get people to church, but the difficulty has almost been to get them away from it, so that the common business of life might not be neglected.”
Revival had hit Kilsyth, and like a stone being dropped into a pond, its waves would be felt in the surrounding areas. When Burns preached in Dundee at the church where he was filling in for its minister, the same effects occurred there, as in Kilsyth. The young godly pastor, Robert Murray McCheyne, was visiting Palestine at the time, but when he returned, he rejoiced to see the revival in Dundee. Within a few years this movement would spread throughout much of Scotland, bringing thousands of unconverted people to Christ.
But what is a revival? It is the supernatural visitation of God to his church in such a tangible way, that the Christians become saturated with him, resulting in double-minded hypocrisy and sin coming to the surface in their lives, so that they become broken and repentant, forsaking sin and living for Christ. This movement of the Holy Spirit can be sensed by those who previously had no interest in God at all, resulting in multitudes being deeply anxious of their sin, and becoming converted and remaining in the faith. It is not just an emotional high that is exciting for a while, then dies away like a straw fire; it is a genuine, spiritual fire that leaves a permanent and deep transformation in many lives and communities.
It is simply not possible to explain the reason for the tremendous and rapid growth and effectiveness experienced in periods of our Scottish Christian heritage without understanding this key part of our revival history. Scientists, psychologists, and sociologists, might scratch around to try and explain the cause of such a huge Christian influence on shaping Scotland in past movements, but they usually neglect to properly address the subject of genuine revivals. As usual, it begins with prayer and consecration to God, then God’s fire falls.
“Revive me according to Your word” (Psalm 119:25, NKJV).
Image: Fire: Oscar, CC BY-SA 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0>, via Wikimedia Commons.