Read it and weep - Court & Campbell

I am currently reading Campbell & Court’s ‘Be a hero’.

I cannot stress enough just how essential this book is to those who see themselves as true Salvationists. If you like to add the tag ‘primitive’ to your calling then you cannot escape reading this book.

I think that, in time, this book will be seen as a major catalyst in the revival and reformation of The Salvation Army.

However, I want to talk specifically about chapter 6.

I have only got as far as Chapter 6 so what follows may be true of other chapters as well.

I normally read books very quickly but this book needs to be chewed well. The powerful revolutionary rhetoric, information and challenge within this volume cannot be quickly swilled around the mouth and swallowed whole. To do so would cause spiritual indigestion on a damaging level – in addition this book needs to have every ounce of nutrition absorbed by the soul.

Reading chapter six anointed me! Now I know I am prone to flamboyant speech but this is not hyperbole – as I read Chapter 6 of this book I felt God’s anointing come upon me - like the oil in Psalm 133 - as I read Chapter 6 God’s spirit oozed all over me. I felt that I had entered the Holy of Holies. This was not a shiver down the spine moment this was a powerful manifestation of God. I have never felt such an anointing come upon me as a result of simply reading a book. I trembled, I crumpled and I cried (and I was in The London Borough of Bromley Staff Canteen at the time!)

Why did I feel like this?

Because God was confirming and underlining to me the fact that he is going to surpass what he did (so comprehensively described in Chapter 6) in The Salvation Army 1865-1894 and he is going to do it in and through us. He is going to give us a revival of truly Acts 2 proportions – indeed what is coming probably needs another word than simply ‘revival’ as that word has become so watered down over time that it has lost some of its impact.

This is going to be a “revolutionary” revival for “primitive” Salvationists (tautology I know but so is born again Christian!)

If you consider your life to be nothing more than a resource given freely to God for the mass plunder of the devil’s kingdom and the global Salvation of the world then buy this book. If on the other hand you quite frankly couldn’t give a damn about the damned then buy this book and your mind will be swayed!

Be warned, however - this book will upset you and offend you because it peels away the crusted bandages of our so-called civilised world and makes us stare upon the fetid sores and smell the putrid puss that oozes from years of sinful oppression and Christian compromise

Buy this book and read it on your knees and then enlist to be a hero, a glorious soul-winner, a victorious saint, a champion of the poor and needy, a victim of persecution, a potential martyr – in short a true Salvationist!

Yours under Christ and irrepressibly over the devil!

Andrew