Catch the Wind: Part 2 — Brad Allen

I've been preaching spiritual awakening conferences. I was a Baptist pastor for 40 years in Oklahoma. I've been preaching these conferences almost now for the last 13 years. It's been such a wonderful journey.

I preach these conferences in 21 different states in Canada and in Scotland. Before we get started tonight, I think it's all right for believers in Jesus Christ to enjoy each other. I think it's fine.

It's all right to laugh a little bit. I was thinking, well I thought about it today, a story. I need to ask three questions. How many Crimson Tide fans are there here tonight? Any? Okay, a few. All right.

Are there any Auburn fans here tonight? Okay. We got a few. All right. Are there any LSU fans here tonight? Okay. I need to tell you a story now. One day, this Auburn fan read an ad in the newspaper. It said a cruise, $19 .95, and it gave an address.

A man, he ran down to this address, and it was an old house on the river. He went in the house, and the guy is sitting behind an old desk, and he said, is this where I can get the cruise for $19 .95? Yes.

So he paid. As soon as he paid, somebody slipped up behind him, threw a gunny sack over his head, and they opened the back door of this old house and kicked him out in the river. He went floating down the river.

Right behind him, an LSU fan came in. I want this cruise. Okay. Paid. Gunny sack over his head. They kicked him out in the river. About 10 minutes, well, this Auburn fan, an LSU fan, they were floating along down the river, and the Auburn fan asked the LSU fan, he said, do you think they serve any food on this cruise?

The Need for Revival in Every Life

The LSU fan said, well, they didn't last year. Okay. Now, you understand when I tell that in Oklahoma, I tell it on Texas Longhorns and Texas A &M. I'm so glad to be here. Is there anyone here tonight who does not believe that our nation needs revival?

We need to see an awakening of God in America. Is there anyone here that does not believe that revival is needed in North Port, Alabama? How about anybody here tonight who believes that revival is needed in New Beginning Worship Center?

How about you? Is revival needed in your life? Now, when I finish tonight and tomorrow night, there may be some of you who will say, well, Brad, those really weren't sermons you preached. Well, for want of a better term, let's call them historical sermons.

The Hebrides Revival on the Island of Lewis

I want to tell you the story tonight and tomorrow night of one of the greatest revivals that's ever come in all of church history. This great revival happened 1949 to 53 on the island of Lewis off the west coast of Scotland.

The island of Lewis is one of the Hebrides Islands, very unique. There are about 500 of the Hebrides Islands, less than 100 of them are inhabited, and most of the ones that are inhabited have a very, very small population.

The largest island is the island of Lewis. It's also the island farthest north. If you look on a globe and come around from the island of Lewis right around, it's just about split Canada right in the middle.

That's kind of the location of the island of Lewis. When I was finishing research on my book Catch the Wind, Nancy and I flew over to the island of Lewis in 2001, and I had the blessed privilege of interviewing elderly people who were converted to Christ during this great revival.

Scriptures That Ground Great Revivals

I'm so glad I went when I did because everyone that I interviewed is home in glory tonight. They're gone. Scripture. I've noticed in studying revival, I've been studying revivals since I was in seminary.

I was in seminary back in the dark ages, you understand. I've noticed that in every great revival that's happened, there seems to be a scripture that God uses, a scripture that just kind of rises to the surface like cream, rises to the top in a cream can.

For instance, in the great reformation in Europe in the 1500s, Martin Luther, George Blauerock, some of those great preachers back then, that great revival, the scripture that rose to the top was the one that says, the just shall live my faith.

In the great revival that came to England under the preaching of John Wesley and George Whitefield, the scripture that rose to the surface was the one that says, you must be born again. In fact, it's a matter of recorded history.

George Whitefield preached on this text over 600 times. Somebody once asked Whitefield, well, why do you preach on you must be born again so much? And Whitefield replied, because you must be born again.

There were two scriptures that became almost the motto of this great revival on the island of Lewis. The first one is in Psalm 24. Who shall ascend to the hill of the Lord and who shall stand in his holy place?

He who has clean hands and a pure heart, he shall receive the blessing of the Lord. The second scripture is Isaiah 44 where God made a promise. God said, I will pour water on him who is thirsty and floods on the dry ground.

Now, especially tomorrow night, I want you to listen for those two scriptures as the story unfolds about the revival on the island of Lewis. We need to start tonight with the preacher. The preacher during this great revival was the old Scottish Highlander preacher, Duncan Campbell.

Duncan Campbell's Early Life and Calling

What a preacher he was. Over these last many years, everywhere from Scotland, from Lewis, from Pennsylvania, from Georgia, from Texas, I've gathered, I have about 28 of old Duncan Campbell's sermons on tape.

What a preacher he was. Passionate preacher. He was preaching one time and he hit the pulpit so hard he broke a bone in his wrist. Duncan Campbell. Duncan Campbell was born in 1898 about six miles north of Oban, Scotland on the mainland of Scotland.

His house, where he grew up, it's about a mile, mile and a half from the coast. There's the Atlantic Ocean. He was the son of Hugh and Jane Campbell. He grew up in that farmhouse. It was a farm. His daddy was a farmer and a stonemason.

When Duncan Campbell was 15 years of age, he became quite popular in the area in which he lived as a player of the bagpipes. He was red-headed and so he became known in that area of Scotland, the Argyll area, as the Red Piper.

He would be invited as a teenage boy to come and play the bagpipes at Scottish dances. You need to understand, as I mention Scottish dances tonight and tomorrow night, there was always drinking going on at these dances.

They drank whiskey. Would you want to guess what kind of whiskey? Scotch whiskey. Duncan Campbell was invited one night at the age of 15 to come a few miles away from his house and play at a Scottish dance.

He got all dressed up. He put on his kilt. When Nancy and I were over there, I started to buy a kilt and wear it when I was doing this. But then I stood in front of a mirror and looked at my knees and I changed my mind quickly.

He dressed up in his kilt, all the stuff they put on. He got his bagpipes and two swords because he was going to perform the Scottish sword dance that night and he walked several miles to the dance. He was playing the bagpipes that night and right in the middle of playing the old Scottish song, The Green Hills of Tyrol, suddenly without any warning whatsoever, unexpectedly, Duncan Campbell in here fell under deep conviction of sin.

Duncan Campbell's Conversion in the Barn

When he finished playing the song, he went to the chairman of the dance who happened to be a minister and he told him, he said, I have to leave. Well, why do you have to leave? He said, because I've just discovered that I'm lost and I'm on my way to hell.

The chairman of the dance who happened to be a minister said, don't worry about it, you'll get over it. Duncan Campbell went out into the night under deep conviction. Not sure why, Duncan Campbell never did say, but when he left out of that building, another young man that Duncan knew, teenage boy, he left with Duncan.

He was concerned about his soul. They walked down the road together for a while and came to an intersection where the boy, he had to turn to the right to go to his house and they paused at the intersection and this boy said, Duncan, what are you going to do about this?

And Duncan said, I don't know what you're going to do, but I'm going to go home and get right with God. And this boy said, I think I'll wait a while. Springing forward several years, this boy became a very successful wealthy businessman in Scotland.

He was in a nursing home on his deathbed and a preacher came to talk to him and pressed the claims of Christ on his life and this old man said, don't bother me with that. I settled that the night Duncan was saved.

Duncan Campbell went on home. He came to the little village of Benderlock, walking home. Nancy and I had been to Benderlock, walked around. There was an old meeting house there that they had built years and years and years before in memory of an old preacher of many years before.

And Duncan Campbell was surprised to see the lights on. He had been gone away working from home and he didn't know that there were two ladies in the community who were pilgrims or missionaries with the faith mission out of Edinburgh, Scotland and they were there holding services.

Duncan Campbell slipped up right close to the door and listened and inside he heard his father, Hugh Campbell, praying. He was praying for the services and praying for his family. Duncan Campbell opened the door and went in.

He came down over on this side, close to the front. His daddy was sitting there and he slipped in beside his dad and took a seat. Dad looked at him and said, Laddie, it's sure good to see you here. He'd been sitting there just a few minutes and one of the lady missionaries, one of the pilgrims, she stood up and quoted a verse of scripture from the book of Job.

This verse of scripture says, God speaketh once or twice, but man perceives it not. Well this went like a sword to Duncan's heart. He said, I knew that God was speaking to me and I didn't know what to do about it.

He became so upset he just got up and left the building, took off home. He said, I have no idea how many times on the way home I fell in the middle of that country road, fell to my knees, crying out, didn't know what to do.

He said, every step I took I was afraid to take the next step, I was afraid the ground would open up in front of me and I would fall into a devil's hell. He finally got home at 1 .30 in the morning. When he walked in the house, his mother, Jane Campbell, was on her knees before the kitchen fire in prayer.

He told his mother what was going on in here and she said, Laddie, your cousins are asleep in the bedrooms. I would suggest, while I go make you a bed someplace in the house, I would suggest that you go out to the barn and you tell God just what you told me.

Fifteen year old Duncan Campbell went out to the barn. He said he fell over into a pile of straw. He never forgot this experience, never forgot his prayer. He said, I just fell over and I said, oh God, I know not what to do.

I know not how to come, but God, I'm coming. Have mercy on me, a sinner. And he said, in that moment, I felt myself to have been born again. Now something Duncan Campbell said about that, I want to pause just a second right here, just parenthesis.

The rest of his life, Duncan Campbell said, there were three things that I knew about that experience in the barn. I knew it was real. I knew it was definite. And I knew it was supernatural. Could I ask you a personal question?

Whatever kind of experience you had, it might have been in vacation, Bible school, church camp, church service at home, wherever it might have been, could I ask you, whatever kind of experience you had, was it real?

Was it definite? Was it supernatural? If not, you need to be born again tonight. So Duncan Campbell is saved, 15 years of age. The next four years, he's very active in the Lord's work, active in his church, active in sharing Jesus Christ with other people.

Holiness and the Fullness of the Spirit

At the age of 19, Duncan Campbell went off to World War I. He's a member of the, well, first he was a member of the Scottish infantry in France. But company commander, someone found out that Duncan Campbell grew up on a farm and thought, well, he grew up on a farm, he ought to know something about horses, so they transferred him into the Scottish cavalry.

He's in France. He participates in the last major charge of the Scottish cavalry in France in World War I. He said, we charged across this flat battlefield, charging the German lines, and right in the middle of the charge, Duncan Campbell's horse was hit, and he was hit.

He found himself lying beside his dead horse, and Duncan Campbell was lying on his stomach, bleeding profusely. He was wounded badly. He said, I was on my stomach looking out across the battlefield, and I could see other dead horses and dead comrades, my fellow soldiers.

And he said, I saw some of my people, my Scottish cavalry people, who were walking around wounded, and they were screaming. He said, I saw a few who were up walking around just giggling. They'd lost their mind.

And he said, I was lying there, and all of a sudden, he said, a scripture came to my mind. Without holiness, no man shall see the Lord. And he said, I thought any moment I would be dead, and I just thought how unworthy I was to go out and meet God.

Now he said, I had never questioned my salvation, but he said, there was something missing in my life. I didn't even know what it was. I had no idea. He said, I was always warring with the flesh. I was saved, but I was warring with the flesh all the time, all the time, all the time.

And he said, I was thinking about this, and all of a sudden, back behind me, back here, a bugle sounded, and here came the Canadian cavalry charging across the same battlefield. When they charged by Duncan Campbell, one of the Canadian horse's hooves struck Duncan Campbell in the spine, and he groaned loudly.

As soon as that charge was over, that Canadian remembered that groan. He came right back to where Duncan Campbell was, jumped off, picked Duncan Campbell up off the battlefield, threw him over behind his saddle, jumped on, and started off at full gallop toward a Canadian first aid station.

And it was on that horse's back that the miracle occurred. Duncan Campbell said, I was so badly wounded. He said, I prayed a prayer. I'd heard my daddy pray. One sentence prayer. I guess his daddy had learned it probably from the old Scottish preacher Robert Murray McShane.

And the prayer, Duncan Campbell prayed and said, oh God, make me as holy as a saved sinner can be. I have the tape in my office, old Duncan Campbell telling about that. And he says in that Scottish brogue, and I always wish I were a Scottish preacher.

They just sound more holy than Okies do. And on that tape, he said, I prayed, oh God, make me as holy as a saved sinner can be. And on that tape, Duncan Campbell said, God! God did it. He said, all of a sudden I felt as pure as an angel.

You see, Duncan Campbell thought that God was getting him ready to die just any minute. Little did he know, God was getting him ready to live. The rest of his life, Duncan Campbell referred to this experience on horse's back by different terms.

Sometimes he called it baptism of the Holy Spirit. Sometimes he called it being filled with the Holy Spirit. There were times when he called it complete salvation. He wasn't much interested in terms. He just enjoyed the experience.

And I realize, now I'm an old Baptist preacher. And I realize that there are different opinions. I know all of the arguments here and there and everything. Is it filling of the Holy Spirit? Is it baptism?

I can tell you this, dear people, when you talk about the fullness of the Holy Spirit, we've argued over the expressions a lot more than we've enjoyed the experience. I've preached all over this nation.

And I don't know about other churches, but I know in our Baptist churches, the greatest need in our churches is for saved members of those churches to be filled with the blessed Holy Spirit. Greatest need.

Revival Through the Power of the Holy Spirit

You want to know what that will do to you? Look what it did to Duncan Campbell. That Canadian got Duncan Campbell to a Canadian first aid station. Now at this point in his life, he knew a little bit, but Duncan Campbell did not really speak English.

He spoke his native Gaelic. They put him in a cot, horribly wounded. He said, I'd lost so much blood, I couldn't really do anything. But he said, I managed to lift both of my hands to heaven like this.

You see, he wasn't a Southern Baptist. He could lift his hands like that. You understand? He said, I lifted both of my hands to heaven. And he said, I kept repeating a verse of a psalm. Psalm 103, verse 1.

He said, I kept repeating it over and over again in the Gaelic language. It's the verse that says, bless the Lord, O my soul. And all that is within me, bless his holy name. Kept saying that over and over again.

You want to know what Holy Spirit revival is? There was not a Canadian in that first aid station that understood a word of Gaelic. And in one hour, seven Canadians had been born again. That's what God is able to do.

They shipped Duncan Campbell back to Scotland, to a hospital in Perth, Scotland. He was in the hospital for 13 months. He said it was 13 glorious months of revival. Doctors and nurses and other patients were converted to Christ.

He said it was wonderful. After 13 months, he got to go back home to the home of Hugh and Jane Campbell, his mama and daddy. They wanted him to become a preacher. But his thinking was in his mind, well, I'd have to learn English.

I'd have to go to school seven or eight years. And I've just discovered that God is able to send revival in the matter of moments. So he decided not to become a preacher. He went over to Edinburgh and enrolled and spent nine months studying at the Faith Mission.

The Faith Mission, they send out missionaries to the rural areas of Scotland. They call them pilgrims. And he became a pilgrim with the Faith Mission. They sent him back to his own, got to live at his mother and daddy's home.

And he just went around the Argyle area there of Scotland, talking about Jesus Christ, witnessing to people. He did this for five years. And it's a time of great revival. In fact, you can study about it.

Duncan Campbell's Pastoral Ministry and Spiritual Wilderness

It's come down to be known as the Mid-Argyle Revival. Duncan Campbell is now 25 years of age, and he wants to get married. He and Shona Gray have been in love since they were teenagers. He thought in his mind, I can't get married.

I have no income. I couldn't support a family. So he decided to officially become a minister. He and Shona got married. His first pastorate was in the village of Ardvassar on the Island of Skye, one of the Hebrides Islands.

It wasn't true that today you can drive onto the island. A long bridge has been built. Nancy and I visited the Island of Skye. And way down at the south, the absolute southern tip of Skye is the village of Ardvassar, where Duncan Campbell was pastor.

He served there. Then he moved over to the northwest coast of the mainland of Scotland to the town of Ballintore. He served there as pastor for 10 years. Then he moved to the center of the country of Scotland to the city of Falkirk and served as pastor there.

He served those three churches for a total of 24 years. 24 years. But somewhere, you can't put your finger on the definite time, but sometime in that 24 years, something happened. Duncan Campbell said, these were his own words, he said they were years of living in a barren wilderness.

Why? Because he lost the fullness of the Spirit of God. He said that experience on horses back there in World War I became a dim memory. And he said, the reality of Jesus Christ began to recede in my mind.

He said, I knew I was living in a barren wilderness. I didn't really know what to do. And there he was, pastor in Falkirk, Scotland, and many a night, his wife Shona would hear him up praying and saying, oh God, please tell me what to do.

A Daughter's Challenge and Duncan's Complete Surrender

1947. Duncan Campbell is now 49 years of age. He and Shona have five children. He's pastor in Falkirk. It's 5 .30 in the morning in the Parsonage, and he's upstairs in his study. He's putting the final touches on a sermon that he's about to go to Edinburgh and preach at a convention.

Now, I need you to know this. Although he realized he had lost the fullness of the Holy Spirit, he was a successful pastor. He preached good sermons. He was a popular convention preacher. He baptized people.

He married people. He buried people. People loved him. Pastor Fuller, it's possible for us to be, quote, successful pastors. But not have the fullness of the Spirit of God. He was upstairs in his study, 5 .30 in the morning studying, and downstairs, he heard singing coming from, they called it, anybody know, the parlor?

You remember what a parlor was? Young people don't know. Living room, whatever. He recognized it immediately. It was the voice of his 16-year-old daughter, Sheena. Now, Sheena was a child of God, born again.

She was already a foreign mission volunteer. She had committed her life to go out as a foreign missionary to the nation of Tibet. And she was in the parlor singing. Duncan Campbell said, there just seemed to be something captivating about her voice that morning.

And he said, I closed my notes, closed my Bible, walked downstairs and went into the parlor and just sat down in a chair and listened. While Sheena was singing, she was singing a song, coming, coming, yes, they are, coming, coming from afar.

From the Indies and the Gandhis, steady flows that living stream to love's ocean, Calvary, their wandering theme. Sheena finished singing that song, and she did something that changed her daddy's life.

She went over and sat down in her daddy's lap, put both of her arms around his neck and said, Daddy, I've been meaning on asking you a question. Why is it not with you now, as it once was? If you were a daddy, wouldn't that crumble you up?

She said, Daddy, you used to see revival. Why don't you see revival anymore? And then she asked another question. Daddy, how long has it been since you've led a lost soul to Jesus Christ? And he said, it broke my heart.

He went on to Edinburgh to preach at this convention. Duncan Campbell said, I'd rather been any place on God's earth than there, but he preached. And when he finished preaching, he got in the car and started back toward Falkirk.

And on the way, he said, I prayed, said, God, if you can't bring me back to where I used to be, if you cannot restore all the years that the locusts have eaten, I'm going to resign the church, quit preaching and just go into business.

When he got back home, he told his wife Shona and his little daughter Sheena, he said, I'm going up to my study and I won't be out to eat or to drink until I'm right with God. He went upstairs, went in.

I wish I could tell you everything that happened in that study. I put a lot of this, what Duncan Campbell said about it in my book, but let me just broadly hit it. He said, I went in, I shut the door to my study.

And he said, I pulled a rug over in front of the fire and I lay down on my stomach on the rug. And he said, I started doing business with God. He said, I prayed, I cried, I agonized, I moaned, I groaned.

He said, once the study door opened and little Sheena, my daughter came in and laid down beside me and put her arm around me and prayed and said, oh God, please keep my daddy's reason about him. She thought her daddy might be going crazy.

She got up and left somewhere around 1230 that night. Duncan Campbell said, I finally came to the place where I just made a complete surrender of my life to the Lord. And he said, the glory returned, the glory came.

And he said, almost immediately when the glory came, then I began to think, hey, I'm gonna have to go back as a pilgrim with the faith mission. I won't have a salary. I can't take care of my family. And he thought in his mind, my wife promised Sheena a new winter coat.

I won't be able to buy her a new winter coat. And he said, just like that, the glory departed. And I was back in agony. So the door opened, little Sheena came in, laid down beside me and said, daddy, I've been thinking, I've been praying.

And I think perhaps God wants you to go back as a pilgrim with the faith mission. And I know you'll worry about that. And I realized that mother promised me a new winter coat. But don't you worry about that.

I don't need a new winter coat. You just go through with God. And she got up and left. About two o 'clock in the morning, Duncan Campbell finally said, God, I'll become a pilgrim. I'll become anything you want me to be.

And he said, the glory came, the glory came, the glory came. Oh, how we need to see that. The next Sunday morning, Duncan Campbell got up in his pulpit at his church. And he told his church about this experience.

Now, being filled with the Holy Spirit just kind of cut across the grain of the teaching of the Church of Scotland. They weren't too happy to hear about what had happened to Duncan Campbell. In fact, the next day on Monday, five of the church elders resigned their office and left the church.

One of the elders said, I will not have a fool in the pulpit. Well, you need to know that Duncan Campbell did resign his church. But you also need to know that when he walked out of the parsonage in Falkirk, Scotland, all of heaven is about to break loose.

God's Provision and the Coming Revival on Lewis

Now, I need to add a little postscript here. You need to know this. In a few months, Duncan Campbell was over on the island of Skye preaching a meeting. Great revival came. When the revival meeting was over, a businessman who owned a manufacturing plant, they manufactured wool and cloth.

This businessman came to Duncan Campbell and said, Mr. Campbell, this great revival, he said, almost all of my employees down at the plant have been converted to Christ, and I need to give a thank offering.

Said, do you have a family? Duncan Campbell said, yes, I have a wife and five kids. And this businessman said, OK, you come down to my plant and you pick out enough wool and cloth for you, your wife, and all five of your kids to make all of them a new suit of clothes and enough cloth to make all of them a new winter coat.

Sheena got her new winter coat. All of heaven is about to come onto the island of Lewis, and I'm going to tell you about that tomorrow night. Just a tidbit, Duncan Campbell was invited to come to the island of Lewis and preach a 10-day meeting at the Barbus Church.

He stayed almost three years. Why? Because God came. God came. Now, that would be akin to Brad Allen leaving Duncan, Oklahoma, coming to North Port, Alabama, and I don't get to go back to Oklahoma until 2016 because God came.

The Invitation to Be Born Again and Seek Revival

Wouldn't that be great? Wouldn't that be great? Now, it's always awkward for me to give an invitation after this story tonight, OK? First of all, I do need to ask each one of you here tonight, have you had an experience with Jesus Christ that's real, definite, and supernatural?

I'm not talking about joining the church. I tried that one time. I joined the Baptist Church. I can't say I was baptized. I was ducked in water, but I didn't know Jesus Christ from Batman. I was just a member of the church.

Are you there? Have you had an experience with Jesus Christ that was real, definite, and supernatural? I would invite you to come to Christ tonight. Come to Christ tonight. Give him your life. You'll never be sorry, and maybe you're here tonight, and I don't know, you may want to come and join the fellowship of New Beginning Church.

Maybe you're here tonight, and you're a member here. This is your church home, but maybe the Holy Spirit has struck a chord in your heart tonight, and you say, oh, God, I need the fullness of the Holy Spirit in my life.

I need revival. The altar is open to you. It's open. Nathan's going to come. He's going to sing, and I want to ask you to quietly stand right where you are, and I want you to come whatever the Holy Spirit prompts out of your heart.

You come right now. While Nathan sings, you come right now.