William Chalmers Burns: The Funeral of Robert Murray M'Cheyne

William Chalmers Burns is one of the most important people from church history you've never heard of! He was a friend to Robert Murray M'Cheyne, and also a friend and mentor later on to one of history's most famous missionaries!

Big thanks to Timothy Frierens for reading this sermon for us. You can check out his Youtube Channel Old Time Preaching here.

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[00:00:00] Revived Thoughts is a production of Revive Studios.

[00:00:08] This is Troy and Joel, and you are listening to Revive Thoughts.

[00:00:15] The body of a child of God is subject to disease and death in this world,

[00:00:19] but when the glory of God's children is completed on the last day,

[00:00:23] it will be raised up in glory and will shine in union with the soul,

[00:00:27] as Christ's body did on the Mount of Transfiguration.

[00:00:31] Every episode we bring you a different voice from history in a sermon that they delivered.

[00:00:36] Today we're going back to 1843 to listen to a sermon by William Chalmers Burns.

[00:00:43] It was preached in Dundee, Scotland.

[00:00:47] Troy, William Burns, I feel like going through the research process for this episode,

[00:00:54] we kind of teased this a little bit in the McChain episode

[00:01:00] where we said that there was a funeral sermon that was coming.

[00:01:06] McChainy dies, and it's this William Burns that preaches his funeral sermon,

[00:01:11] and that kind of opens the door to the who's this William Burns guy.

[00:01:14] And that's sometimes how we do a lot of this Revive Thought stuff.

[00:01:18] You read about a person, and then you see this other minister interacting with that story,

[00:01:23] and their paths cross, and then you keep looking into that other guy,

[00:01:28] and then it's just an endless chain of people.

[00:01:31] Yeah, it's actually a good way to say it.

[00:01:32] Like, honestly, reading church history, like, you would think it's this linear thing,

[00:01:36] one person to one person to one person, but so many people,

[00:01:40] especially by the time you get to the 17, 1800s, start to kind of crisscross over each other's paths.

[00:01:45] It starts to look more almost like a spiderweb where you're like, oh, this connects here, and that connects here, and that connects here.

[00:01:50] And this guy, William Chalmers Burns, I got to tell you, I think he should be a household name.

[00:01:55] I think he should be a very famous individual who is up there with your Hudson Taylors

[00:02:02] and your Charles Spurges, maybe not for preaching per se,

[00:02:07] but just a famous guy that people should know through history.

[00:02:09] And as I was reading just all the things that this guy has been a part of, all the things this guy has done,

[00:02:15] and just the influence he had on the world, it's just another one of those guys where I go,

[00:02:20] I can't believe we have forgotten completely that he ever even existed.

[00:02:24] He's not known to the world.

[00:02:27] 99.9% of Christians have never even heard of him,

[00:02:30] and yet he was such an important figure and did so many different things.

[00:02:35] And it just, I'm glad that we get to be a part of hopefully bringing his life back to some people, but it's not enough, man.

[00:02:42] I wish there were more people digging through history, looking and researching for these people,

[00:02:47] and getting these people back out there.

[00:02:49] We need more of it because there are just way too many amazing people that have been completely forgotten.

[00:02:54] Yeah, he almost reminds me of like, because he's so kind of connected.

[00:02:59] His story overlaps with so many people in the late 1800s that it almost seems like fictitional.

[00:03:04] You know, like if it was like a, if there was like a movie about a fictitious guy that happened to cross paths with all the main characters,

[00:03:13] you know, that was kind of like retconned in.

[00:03:15] That's kind of how it feels to me.

[00:03:17] But it's like he's a real dude.

[00:03:19] That is a good way to describe it.

[00:03:20] No, he does.

[00:03:21] Like when he shows up later on in the story, the person he bumps into, you just kind of like, wait a second.

[00:03:26] This is just somebody, the writers in the room were like, we want to do a call back to season two here.

[00:03:30] That's all that is.

[00:03:31] Some fan service.

[00:03:32] There's no, there's no, there's no explanation for how you would pull these two together.

[00:03:36] And yet that's exactly it.

[00:03:38] All right, Joel.

[00:03:38] We always try to read some positive responses though, here to revive thoughts where we can,

[00:03:42] just to let you know that we listen to and read your comments when they come in and we appreciate them.

[00:03:46] They do help us a lot.

[00:03:48] These two both come from Spotify today.

[00:03:50] One is from John, on our John Nelson Darby episode, the wheat and the tares.

[00:03:55] Someone said, ah, this is one of my favorite theologians.

[00:03:57] Thank you so much.

[00:03:57] You're welcome, Peter, for helping you out there.

[00:03:59] And then another person said on our Watchman knee episode,

[00:04:02] and this one stood out to me because that is a really old episode.

[00:04:06] I mean, that's going back to the first year of revive thoughts was our Watchman knee episodes.

[00:04:11] And this person said, keep it up with these messages four days ago from the Berean book ministry.

[00:04:16] And I want you to know if you're all the way back in that episode from our first year, we did keep it up.

[00:04:22] So I don't know where they're at in this process.

[00:04:26] But if you're if you're starting in the beginning and moving through, we kept going.

[00:04:30] It's been it's been going a long ways.

[00:04:32] And it's got a long ways to go.

[00:04:34] So but thank you so much.

[00:04:35] Leave us comments on Spotify or wherever you are listening.

[00:04:38] It helps us out a lot.

[00:04:39] It helps get the word out there to others.

[00:04:41] And it tells all the different algorithms and stuff.

[00:04:43] People are listening and people are enjoying it.

[00:04:45] And that is very helpful.

[00:04:48] All right.

[00:04:48] Let's talk about William Chalmers Burns, born in the year 1815 in Scotland.

[00:04:57] Pretty, pretty middle class average type of fellow.

[00:05:00] He his father was a minister, a Presbyterian minister.

[00:05:03] So he did kind of have a, you know, ministry adjacent uprising, although he himself didn't seem to take a particular interest in his early years, really in a whole lot of anything.

[00:05:13] He went he was fine at school, wasn't brilliant, you know, and one of those one of those adequate guys, but not like super applying himself is is how I get the the vibe coming from him.

[00:05:26] But what he did like to do was just getting some nature.

[00:05:30] He was he was an outdoorsy type.

[00:05:31] He liked to go climbing trees, mountain climbing, you know, out hiking.

[00:05:37] He would rather be doing that than reading books in school or going to church, just being out in nature.

[00:05:43] He wanted to be like a like a farmer.

[00:05:45] Like that was his dream.

[00:05:46] Like when he was 12, they asked him what he wanted to be.

[00:05:48] And he's like, I'm going for this farmer thing.

[00:05:50] That seems like the life to live animals and grains and such.

[00:05:55] So not not the story of a prodigy minister that we see in his childhood there.

[00:06:02] He did talk about really liking Pilgrim's Progress, but other than that, didn't seem to have much interest in spiritual things until, you know, the track kind of shifts a little bit around 14 or so.

[00:06:16] It seems his uncle was a lawyer and I guess had a good rapport with him because through these conversations he had with his uncle, he was convinced he had he had potential and that he should really shoot for a higher education and kind of got him interested in thinking about what he had.

[00:06:32] Things of law and such.

[00:06:34] And so he did end up going to higher education, going to college, getting a master in Greek and Latin.

[00:06:41] He went from wanting to become a farmer to shifting gears and like maybe being a farmer and a lawyer.

[00:06:48] Eventually he started earning honors and rewards and becoming a Greek tutor.

[00:06:53] And he eventually graduated and was ready for a law career.

[00:06:57] So, yeah, he was smart.

[00:06:59] He just just took him a while to apply himself.

[00:07:02] But it was it was there all along.

[00:07:04] You know, Joel, this just thought this just thought kind of came to me because on our next episode, we're talking about Martin Luther, who was also supposed to be going into law.

[00:07:11] How many preachers have we covered who were on their way into a degree in law and then God changed them?

[00:07:18] Because I think a John Calvin, he was another one who was on that law track kind of degree.

[00:07:23] I feel like this is a really common thing.

[00:07:25] So law schools watch out.

[00:07:27] It seems like the number one thing that keeps your lawyers from graduating is God sends them off to ministry and said maybe that's the best thing you could do.

[00:07:34] Like it's there would be even more lawyers if the Lord wasn't constantly picking from them.

[00:07:38] I don't know.

[00:07:38] Anyway, there is that just I just was thinking that especially in between the I'm going to become a businessman and I'm going to become a lawyer and then they end up becoming ministers.

[00:07:46] I just wonder how many other people we cover.

[00:07:49] I feel like it's just a really common story.

[00:07:51] We should go back and dig through, you know, our old the old Yale's and such and see like what were the actual areas of study available to people?

[00:08:00] Maybe there was only like three and law was one of them.

[00:08:02] Yeah, you think about if there's only like medicine, maybe kind of some off branch of ministry academics and then law, then I guess that really only if you're going to go to school for higher education, there's what is only four positions really open to you.

[00:08:15] So maybe that's why they always seem like they're on their way to law when suddenly they that that might it might be as simple as that, Joel.

[00:08:21] All right. Well, that's what the smart people did.

[00:08:24] If you were smart, then like you that you went to law.

[00:08:27] Right.

[00:08:28] All right. Well, if you know the answer to that question, please feel free to email us because I'm just now wondering it.

[00:08:33] And if you do not know the answer to that question, then then research it and find the answer.

[00:08:37] Then email us and let us know that way we don't have to do it.

[00:08:40] You can do it for us.

[00:08:41] Now, when his dad was disappointed that his son was kind of becoming a lawyer, he had really always hoped his son would become a minister like himself,

[00:08:49] which I find this kind of funny because the guy had other children.

[00:08:52] And at one point, his sister will kind of be like the last person we thought would do anything useful for God was William.

[00:08:59] And so it's funny to me that his dad was like, I really thought he was going to be a minister all along when he's he just he always was out fishing and then he wanted to become a lawyer.

[00:09:06] But no part of him really seemed interested in that aspect at all.

[00:09:10] So but because his son was so firm in the opinion, I got to be a lawyer, he sends him to Edinburgh to kind of go get trained up and, you know, OK, go down that path.

[00:09:17] I trust you, son. At the age of 16 or 17, it's one article said a tragedy.

[00:09:23] But when I when I tried to research and see what was the tragedy, I didn't see anyone else talking about a tragedy.

[00:09:28] So I think I don't know if that's true, that there was a tragedy.

[00:09:32] And if there was one, it was not clear what it was.

[00:09:34] I looked several places, could not find any word on the tragedy.

[00:09:37] But what does seem to have changed him was that he began reading a book his dad gave him called Early Piety.

[00:09:44] Now, I know you're looking at your bookshelf and going, of course, Early Piety.

[00:09:46] I've read it 100 times, but maybe not, though.

[00:09:49] Maybe if you're like me, you had never even heard of this book.

[00:09:52] And so you did what all great historian podcasters do.

[00:09:56] You put it into Google.

[00:09:57] And what you found was it is a book by Cotton Mather, which we've covered Cotton Mather multiple times on this episode,

[00:10:04] including a sermon he gave to Pirates on Death Row.

[00:10:08] Go back a few, about 20 episodes and you'll find it.

[00:10:10] Very good sermon.

[00:10:12] And what's important, you may be going, OK, just plugging, plugging your earlier podcast sermons.

[00:10:16] Yes, I am.

[00:10:17] Because this book, Early Piety, was actually a book of Cotton Mather sermons.

[00:10:21] So there it goes.

[00:10:22] It's relevant.

[00:10:23] His, this book that he had that his dad gave him said, hey, I hope you read this someday, son.

[00:10:28] Well, for some reason, maybe through a tragedy or maybe just because it was sitting there, he opens the book and he reads a book of sermons by Cotton Mather with a little bit of a biography of a man named Nathaniel Mather.

[00:10:41] Seems to be a relative of Cotton's who died.

[00:10:44] That Cotton kind of covered down his story.

[00:10:46] I mean, look at that.

[00:10:47] Church history, the story of a saint named Nathan, you know, a former Christian named Nathan Nathaniel Mather there and sermons of the past.

[00:10:57] And that's what does it.

[00:10:58] That's what brings Burns to Christ.

[00:11:00] Reading that book, he suddenly felt God calling him.

[00:11:02] And in that moment, he was totally changed.

[00:11:04] And to quote Burns himself, he said, God apprehended me.

[00:11:07] I felt the conviction of my lost estate rushing through me with resistless power.

[00:11:11] I retired to a bedroom and there I pour out my heart for the first time with tears and a genuine heart rending cry for mercy.

[00:11:19] Now, I don't, he said also in another place, basically, he suddenly became very aware of how just sinful he had been.

[00:11:24] And even though, if you look at Burns' life, he wasn't like a hardcore drinker.

[00:11:28] He wasn't beating anybody.

[00:11:29] He wasn't a gambler.

[00:11:31] He's no, he's none of the one of the bad guys per se, but he just was living for himself.

[00:11:35] And he suddenly was convicted of that.

[00:11:37] And it seems that I would love to give all the credit to old sermons and old church history.

[00:11:41] I do think that does deserve credit here.

[00:11:42] But also, I think the prayers of his family, reading the book his dad had long given him, clearly he was wrestling through it.

[00:11:48] And this was the source of it.

[00:11:49] But just, again, gotta give credit.

[00:11:51] Look at that.

[00:11:51] God using old sermons to change lives just as he is today.

[00:11:55] Good job.

[00:11:56] What a wonderful moment.

[00:11:57] It just, you love to see it.

[00:11:59] Now, his oldest sister, again, I mentioned before, said, we never thought this guy, of all of the people in the family, would end up doing something good for God.

[00:12:07] But you can see here how God had different plans.

[00:12:09] And as soon as he had poured out his heart to God, as soon as he had met the living God, suddenly his plans and desires to study law were dead to him.

[00:12:17] And he now felt a deep calling to do what his dad had always prayed and hoped he would, which was to become a minister like his father.

[00:12:23] Yeah, so he went to go get theological training.

[00:12:26] And while there, he heard an old retired missionary describe his life overseas and the need for people to go.

[00:12:33] And Burns felt really convicted and called to become a missionary and get into missions work himself.

[00:12:39] This is 1838 at this point.

[00:12:42] And he asked to be sent out to India, but at that time there was no availability for him to go to India.

[00:12:48] And so he was told to wait.

[00:12:50] And the next year in 1839, Robert Murray McShane, who again, we did an episode on two episodes ago, was told to take a break from preaching.

[00:13:02] And this is when Robert McShane would famously go on his trip out to Jerusalem to help kind of recover from his illness and partake on that adventure there.

[00:13:13] And it was William Burns here that kind of took up the pulpit in his absence.

[00:13:17] And this, I'm sure you can imagine, was probably terrifying for him.

[00:13:23] Fresh out of, you know, theological school, taking over a pretty substantial church and filling the pulpit for an indeterminate amount of time.

[00:13:31] You know, a year plus, maybe more, who knows?

[00:13:34] And he's there as this interim pastor.

[00:13:37] And it's so funny to look at these quotes because it sounded like he was not very good at preaching.

[00:13:43] There's his brother wrote of him at that time.

[00:13:46] He said he was young, inexperienced, measured in slow speech, gifted with no particular charm of poetry or sentiment of natural eloquence.

[00:13:56] Which are, I've been, that's been said of me as well.

[00:14:01] So if you're gonna, if you're gonna see me preach somewhere, you know, maybe next summer when I'm in America, please don't like start your review of me like that.

[00:14:09] That would pretty much, I mean, it may be true, but it would certainly hurt my feelings if that's the case.

[00:14:13] Slow speech, gifted with no particular charm of poetry or sentiment.

[00:14:17] I love it.

[00:14:18] I love how his review is more poetic than his preaching.

[00:14:24] But it also seemed to be that humbleness, that lack of polish that gave him away with the crowd because it came across as very genuine to him.

[00:14:37] And so in the same light, we have people saying, his brother would go on to say that this would really create an awe, a divine presence and majesty in the people.

[00:14:48] It would disarm the criticism and end up kind of compelling even the most careless hearts to receive him as a messenger of God.

[00:14:56] So almost like this guy is so bad at preaching, I guess, you know, it allowed God to really shine through him because it wasn't, people weren't getting distracted with his characteristics and his mannerisms.

[00:15:09] But the message that he would be the preaching through the scriptures, it seemed to resonate well with people and kind of in his own way.

[00:15:17] He ended up being very effective.

[00:15:18] Yeah, it's definitely a case of the Lord using him.

[00:15:20] In some ways, that should be the goal of every minister, not that, oh, you're eloquent, you're charming, you're so good at it, but that the Lord is very present in your sermon.

[00:15:30] That's what every pastor should be aiming for above even those other things.

[00:15:34] In fact, if you said the opposite, he was a gifted, great speaker.

[00:15:39] He was experienced.

[00:15:40] He had beautiful charms and poetry.

[00:15:42] He's eloquent.

[00:15:42] But the Lord wasn't with him.

[00:15:44] Well, that's pretty worthless to the kingdom, isn't it?

[00:15:47] So in a lot of ways, Burns was doing the one thing it seemed he was called to do, which is surrendering to God and being used by God.

[00:15:54] During this time, while he's at Robert Murray McChain's church during that era, his father asked him to kind of come over one Sunday and preach for him, just kind of do a little, you know, kind of swap pastor thing.

[00:16:07] And he goes over, but while he's preaching, a revival kind of breaks out.

[00:16:11] Now, when we say revival, it can be kind of hard to define what that is, a different picture, especially depending on your denominational background or what your history of the church is.

[00:16:19] That might really picture different things.

[00:16:21] So just kind of give a quick definition.

[00:16:24] Revivals, at least when we kind of look at them in history, it's usually characterized by many people kind of coming together in that moment, turning to Christ at once.

[00:16:31] A really large movement of people just all repenting of their sin.

[00:16:34] And those same people suddenly have a hunger and desire to come to church.

[00:16:38] They'll worship for long hours together.

[00:16:40] They'll come and just read the Bible together.

[00:16:43] And it will not just usually sweep just one or two or a handful of people, but it will be almost as if the whole community will come together.

[00:16:50] And you'll see it maybe start at one church, but soon all of the villages and people in the area are all coming to these services, all to just be in the presence of God.

[00:16:59] Now, some people are very cynical when they hear about these revivals and they immediately assume, oh, it's emotionalism and stuff like that.

[00:17:05] And that was happening even during Burns' day, he did receive criticism.

[00:17:09] But the Great Awakening is considered usually by many people to be one of the very first of these kinds of revivals.

[00:17:15] It is interesting because I can't think of any revivals that happened like this really prior to the Great Awakening.

[00:17:22] I haven't maybe looked through them in history, but some people would say that the Reformation was a kind of revival as well.

[00:17:27] So we're not scholars on this kind of stuff.

[00:17:31] This is just what we're seeing happening as Burns is preaching.

[00:17:34] And he brings this back to McChain's church.

[00:17:36] As he's preaching there, hundreds of people are now coming to Christ.

[00:17:39] And wherever he's going, hundreds, even a thousand people in one service are suddenly giving their lives to Christ.

[00:17:44] And what Burns lacked in eloquence as a man in his mid-20s, he seemed to make up for being direct and just speaking truth.

[00:17:50] And people say he spoke without the fear of man.

[00:17:53] But he did not accept responsibility for the revivals either.

[00:17:56] He always said, God is using me.

[00:17:58] That's all it is.

[00:17:59] He would spend several hours in prayer like before these revivals just asking God to use them.

[00:18:03] At nights before and after he would speak pre and after services, he would set up these kind of prayer times so that people would have opportunities to get right with God.

[00:18:13] And they would also set up these places for people to meet with him and just counseling, discipleship.

[00:18:18] It was a big ordeal.

[00:18:20] This was not just one speaker kind of rolling through town, saying a bunch of nice words and then selling books or something.

[00:18:26] This was an intense process of praying, preaching.

[00:18:29] Your entire life was dedicated to this.

[00:18:33] And the records are to be believed.

[00:18:34] The revival saw many people quit drinking.

[00:18:37] Hymns were now being sung in the villages, people said, instead of the drinking songs they were known for.

[00:18:41] And it seemed like the places where this was happening, genuine change actually broke out that lasted more than just, you know, a year or two.

[00:18:49] They weren't just caught up in the emotions of the weeks, but it seemed to bring lasting change to the people of Scotland who were interacting with this specific revival.

[00:18:57] McChain, by the way, for his part, was famous for being in prayer at the very hour the revival started.

[00:19:02] Although he had been out of town, he almost died because of fever.

[00:19:05] He started praying for his church, and then later on him and his church found out the day he was praying for his church fervently, thinking he was going to die, was the same time the revival broke out at his church.

[00:19:14] And when he returned to Scotland, heard the news of the revival, Burns said there was not even a hint of jealousy on him.

[00:19:20] He couldn't have been more thrilled that his people were coming to Christ.

[00:19:23] And that was really all that mattered to him.

[00:19:25] He didn't care who got the credit for it.

[00:19:27] He was just happy God was using his friend Burns to bring people to Christ.

[00:19:31] And I think that says a lot about McChain's character.

[00:19:34] You know, it'd be hard.

[00:19:35] I think the best of men would be hard not to have a moment of jealousy, you know, a moment of Saul like, oh, he brought his thousands, but Burns brings his tens of thousands, right?

[00:19:44] A little bit of, it would be difficult not to go, I've been laboring over these people for years, but under you?

[00:19:49] No, McChain doesn't do any of that.

[00:19:51] He's just like, yes, awesome.

[00:19:52] I wanted these people to come to Christ.

[00:19:54] I'm so, so glad God used you to do it.

[00:19:56] Yeah, and so he loved this.

[00:19:58] For eight years, he would travel and preach all throughout Scotland.

[00:20:02] Eventually, he was looking over at Ireland saying, hey, Ireland needs the gospel too.

[00:20:07] In 1844, he was invited to preach in Ireland, and he began studying Gaelic so that he could like better speak directly to the Irish people.

[00:20:17] However, the revivals did not sweep across Ireland in the same way that they had across Scotland.

[00:20:23] And he did not have a very warm reception there.

[00:20:26] He was rejected and jeered a lot, and they kind of forced him out a little bit.

[00:20:31] It didn't really phase him.

[00:20:33] He kept going.

[00:20:34] He kind of shifted gears and was looking around.

[00:20:36] He wanted to go to Canada next, and so he began studying French to be able to communicate with the French Canadians that were there.

[00:20:44] And he traveled with his uncle.

[00:20:47] Now, this is a different uncle than the law uncle that got him into education in the first place.

[00:20:54] So a different uncle than the one that we mentioned from his childhood.

[00:20:59] But him and his uncle traveled to Canada, again, kind of met with hostility there.

[00:21:05] He talked about having a very poor reception and being met with violence.

[00:21:10] We weren't quite sure.

[00:21:12] You know, he didn't really elaborate further.

[00:21:14] I don't know what that means, like to what extent was the violence made.

[00:21:19] Burns would move on from Canada, but that uncle that he traveled with would stay and settle down there

[00:21:26] and really work at developing a church there in Toronto.

[00:21:31] And this uncle would eventually go on, his name was Robert Burns,

[00:21:34] to become a professor at a seminary there in Toronto towards the end of his life.

[00:21:39] So it is interesting that, I don't know, maybe God used Burns to get this uncle there.

[00:21:47] You know, it was never Burns' long game to stay in Canada, I mean, as it would turn out.

[00:21:53] But I don't know why his uncle found purpose there and Burns didn't, but that seems to be what happened there.

[00:22:01] His uncle would do a lot of work in trying to connect North American churches with Scotland throughout the whole 19th century.

[00:22:08] So interesting, interesting how, I don't know, sometimes God uses other people just to get other people to where they need to be.

[00:22:17] Yeah, you know, that could really be the summary of Burns.

[00:22:20] Like, he's the connector.

[00:22:21] Like, he's like a human bridge.

[00:22:24] Just, this person needed to be in Canada, and so William Burns was the guy who, you know, transported him there.

[00:22:30] Because we're going to see this happen again, and then again, and it just, boop, boop.

[00:22:34] This guy is kind of constantly moving one person from another place.

[00:22:37] Also, didn't mention it, but I put it in the notes.

[00:22:40] Robert Burns became a professor also of church history.

[00:22:43] Look at that, church history making its way back again.

[00:22:45] Guys, I got to study. It's important. Okay.

[00:22:47] Back to William.

[00:22:48] When he returns to Scotland in 1846, he was tired.

[00:22:51] He had spent years traveling the world, learning these other languages, which, by the way, we're not giving enough credit for him.

[00:22:57] I could not, Gaelic is not an easy language to learn, and there's no Duolingo at the time doing this.

[00:23:02] I mean, he's doing this all on his own, pretty much.

[00:23:05] He's already, he's speaking, I'm guessing, you know, he's got to have English, Latin, Greek.

[00:23:11] Like, I'm sure he speaks Scottish, is Scottish a language, Joel?

[00:23:15] Oof, that was embarrassing.

[00:23:16] I really don't know.

[00:23:18] There's no way we can come out of that looking good.

[00:23:21] No, sorry, Scotland.

[00:23:23] I don't know what your language officially is.

[00:23:26] And, but he's got Gaelic now under his belt.

[00:23:28] He had to learn French.

[00:23:29] I mean, he's just, he's tearing through these languages just to reach people on his speaking assignments.

[00:23:33] I mean, that's absolutely incredible.

[00:23:35] And all of this is before where he goes out and does missions, which he's been called to do.

[00:23:40] But his friends said when they saw him in 1846 returning to Scotland, his mind and his spirit were tired,

[00:23:46] and he had begun to acquire a look of age, which he never really lost, which is rough.

[00:23:51] Remember, he was in his mid-20s when this all started, the young man experience.

[00:23:55] Now he has a look of age, which he can't lose.

[00:23:57] So this has been wearing him out.

[00:23:58] So, yet all of this work was done for God before he even kind of, if we had nothing else,

[00:24:04] this would be enough to justify a revived thoughts on him, right?

[00:24:06] Like he's definitely done a lot of great stuff.

[00:24:08] But this was just the beginning.

[00:24:09] His original goal was to go overseas and serve the Lord.

[00:24:12] In 1847, he finally gets that opportunity to go and be a missionary in China.

[00:24:16] Originally he wanted to go to India, but China's the door that opened.

[00:24:19] And sometimes God knows.

[00:24:20] David Livingston originally wanted to go to China.

[00:24:22] God sent him to Africa.

[00:24:23] Lord knows where you need to be.

[00:24:24] Some people, there were some delays and problems.

[00:24:27] People might say, look at all the people in China who didn't get to hear the gospel

[00:24:30] because of all these other things.

[00:24:31] However, while he was preaching and doing these tours,

[00:24:34] the first Protestant missionary who will end up going to Taiwan,

[00:24:37] George Leslie McKay, was actually saved in one of these meetings that Burns had had.

[00:24:43] So again, if Burns had gone straight to the mission field in China,

[00:24:46] maybe he would have had the impact.

[00:24:47] But this George Leslie McKay would have probably not felt the call to missions to go to Taiwan.

[00:24:51] So look again, how God is getting, using Burns to move other people

[00:24:55] and connect other people to where they need to go.

[00:24:57] Now, as he left, a famous Scottish minister whom we covered a long time ago,

[00:25:02] Rabbi John Duncan, Rabbi Duncan, called that not because he was a rabbi,

[00:25:06] but because he had been a missionary to the Jews in Hungary.

[00:25:10] And that's just the nickname he had kind of gotten working with them.

[00:25:12] Told him, hey, when you're there overseas, take care of his cause, as in God's cause,

[00:25:17] and he will take care of your interests.

[00:25:19] So kind of a passing word from one missionary to another saying like,

[00:25:23] hey, this is what you need.

[00:25:24] Just focus on what God has for you and God will take care of you.

[00:25:27] When asked when Burns would be ready to go to China, he said, I'll be ready tomorrow.

[00:25:36] Just send me.

[00:25:37] I'm ready to go.

[00:25:38] Mm-hmm.

[00:25:39] And that voyage to China, specifically Hong Kong, took six months, which is, whew,

[00:25:44] that is quite the time.

[00:25:45] But he used the time well.

[00:25:48] Because leaving for this trip, he did not speak Chinese at all.

[00:25:51] And so he had six months to learn the language.

[00:25:54] And he did so pretty well.

[00:25:55] By the time they landed, he could read and speak Chinese on the basic level without much

[00:26:00] trouble.

[00:26:00] On the voyage over, he himself was single.

[00:26:03] He didn't have any wife or kids.

[00:26:04] But he kind of became the family pastor on the boat.

[00:26:08] And so they would have these daily devotion sessions where they'd come together.

[00:26:12] And it's kind of just a neat vignette of his life to where this is just a small little six

[00:26:19] month sliver of his life.

[00:26:20] But you could make a whole book, a whole movie just about what life on a boat was like for

[00:26:26] six months in his makeshift little church learning and teaching during that time.

[00:26:33] I'm sure he probably made some deep and impactful relationships with the people around him.

[00:26:37] Once he got off the boat, he was put to work quite quickly because he was given three men

[00:26:43] on death row to share the gospel with.

[00:26:45] He met with them every day and he would read the Bible to them every day until they were

[00:26:49] able to get better Chinese people there that could share the gospel with them, people that

[00:26:54] could communicate better.

[00:26:55] After spending a year there, Burns felt confident that he knew the language well enough to begin

[00:27:00] kind of traveling into the interior a bit, traveling to the more remote parts of China.

[00:27:06] Technically, this was breaking a treaty that Britain had signed.

[00:27:10] There were some Obium wars that happened that we've talked about occasionally.

[00:27:14] Foreigners were technically supposed to stay out of the interior of China.

[00:27:19] Burns did not do this.

[00:27:21] He pressed forward and started venturing in and he made great progress in a lot of these

[00:27:27] villages sharing the gospel.

[00:27:29] And this is, man, what you love to see the mid-1800s into the late 1800s.

[00:27:35] I feel like it's that golden era of faith missions where people are just going out with no plans

[00:27:41] as far as food or, you know, material need, shelter, anything like that.

[00:27:45] They just trust the Lord and God provides, you know, it's incredible to see.

[00:27:50] So he went in without any plans.

[00:27:52] He does get robbed at least once.

[00:27:54] I'm sure that, I'm sure there's, you know, that it is hard.

[00:27:57] I'm sure those are trying times.

[00:27:59] I'm sure it requires faith, but, you know, the Lord blessed him in that.

[00:28:03] He does have a few encounters that, with individuals that kind of force them out of the villages.

[00:28:10] But largely, he seems to be being quite effective there.

[00:28:23] Now, Burns stayed busy.

[00:28:25] At one point, he'll open a school and teach boys to read and, you know, to read and write.

[00:28:29] And also, he'll teach them about walking with God.

[00:28:31] And then another point, he'll be working at a hospital and then working, you know, working kind of in the medicine ministry.

[00:28:36] And then suddenly, he'll be traveling through villages and going deep into the interior where, you know,

[00:28:40] no foreigner had ever gone before to share the gospel.

[00:28:43] He was constantly doing just whatever God seemed to have for him to do that day.

[00:28:47] Over time, he made great progress.

[00:28:49] He really learned Chinese on a deep level, deep enough that he was able to translate the first copy of Pilgrim's Progress into Chinese.

[00:28:55] That book that, as a kid, the only book he had had any interest reading that had spiritual themes to it was the first.

[00:29:00] He was the guy who would translate the first copy of that into Chinese, which is, again, just another cool kind of wrapping up moment there in his life.

[00:29:09] He also would translate a lot of Christian hymns into Chinese for the first time.

[00:29:13] Now, if you have listened to our episodes on the Taiping Rebellion or you've listened to the one that we put out on the free feed here,

[00:29:21] you know that this is a really hectic time to be in China.

[00:29:24] This is that same era when Hong Xiu Chuan is leading the Taiping Rebellion at the same exact time Burns is there.

[00:29:31] And you would also know that this is kind of an era where there's a lot of bandits and a lot of problems going on.

[00:29:38] So, again, you have all these people who feel unsafe.

[00:29:40] There's all this war and crime and problems going on.

[00:29:42] And there's also this guy preaching that he's Jesus' brother taking over cities and forcing people to read the Bible and beheading them.

[00:29:49] And if you're hearing all that and going, what a story is that?

[00:29:51] Go back to our feed.

[00:29:52] Listen to the Taiping Rebellion episode.

[00:29:54] It's absolutely wild.

[00:29:55] And if you're waiting for part two, part two is on Patreon.

[00:29:58] You can go sign up for Patreon and hear what happens to the end of that story.

[00:30:02] But it's an absolutely crazy story.

[00:30:04] And this is that era in China that Burns is in preaching the gospel.

[00:30:08] However, at one point, the same kind of revival that swept over in Scotland begins to happen in a place called Xiamen,

[00:30:14] which is in South China, where people are coming every day to here.

[00:30:18] And he reached a village where everyone wanted to hear the gospel.

[00:30:21] And people from all over are pouring in.

[00:30:22] They were praying.

[00:30:23] They were coming together in large groups.

[00:30:25] And this goes on for about two months.

[00:30:27] It's absolutely awesome.

[00:30:28] And it ends up being a huge revival.

[00:30:31] And then geopolitics ends up causing all these problems.

[00:30:35] We had mentioned in that episode of the Taiping Rebellion that there's these groups called the Triads,

[00:30:40] which were almost like these mafia group, criminal groups that have armies that cause problems.

[00:30:44] Well, they end up killing a bunch of British people.

[00:30:46] The British people get mad.

[00:30:47] So they send an army into this region and start killing the Triads.

[00:30:51] And in the process, they basically, as far as I can tell, disrupt this revival.

[00:30:55] They basically sweep it off.

[00:30:57] They put people away.

[00:30:58] Nobody can be out.

[00:30:59] We certainly don't have time for a revival right now.

[00:31:01] And this leads to a huge mess.

[00:31:04] And Christians are getting kind of shot at at one point.

[00:31:07] Burns is taking care of injured people.

[00:31:09] And one of the British soldiers watching him just kind of remarks and says,

[00:31:13] they look at you as almost as if you are their father.

[00:31:15] And it's just, it's a sad moment where this kind of awesome revival is beginning to happen in South China.

[00:31:21] And this geopolitical stuff ends up getting in the way.

[00:31:23] But it just shows to you the impact Burns was having on these people.

[00:31:27] You know, he wasn't just seeing revivals in Scotland or as he traveled to Canada and Ireland attempting there.

[00:31:32] He was making a huge impact in China as well.

[00:31:34] Now, this episode could go on for a while.

[00:31:37] Honestly, this, you're listening, you're going, we already have a really long pre-up before the sermon.

[00:31:42] And I honestly am cutting a lot of stuff out.

[00:31:44] And this could have really become easily a Martyrs and Missionaries episode.

[00:31:47] In fact, originally, I had sent this guy to my wife as a Martyrs and Missionary.

[00:31:51] But then I saw he had a sermon.

[00:31:52] I was like, sorry, Elise, this one goes over my thoughts.

[00:31:54] Because I love telling stories like this.

[00:31:57] And we so rarely get to because most of the amazing missionaries were probably some of the best preachers.

[00:32:01] But we don't have their sermons.

[00:32:02] And so because just what the kind of work they did, their sermons didn't tend to get written down.

[00:32:06] So when I saw this guy at a sermon, I had to grab this one off of my wife and be like, sorry, this one, he needs to come to Revive Thoughts.

[00:32:12] We need to tell a story.

[00:32:14] But before we completely put a wrap up on his time in China, there's still one more extremely important person he has to run into.

[00:32:21] And it's funny as I remember reading in this guy's diary years ago about this guy.

[00:32:26] And I didn't even know I was reading about this man I'm telling you about now.

[00:32:30] I just remember vaguely hearing about this guy.

[00:32:33] In the mid-1860s, after a short trip to Scotland, he was back in China.

[00:32:38] And he was near the Shanghai area.

[00:32:40] And his paths would cross with China's most famous missionary, Hudson Taylor.

[00:32:45] And both of them were going to inland villages.

[00:32:48] Both of them were wearing Chinese dress as to not cause alarm.

[00:32:53] And both of them, you know, had a heart for seeing the Chinese come to Christ.

[00:32:57] And Taylor famously said that being with Burns was like being in the presence of a saint.

[00:33:03] The two of them, they didn't spend much time together.

[00:33:06] It was kind of this brief crossing of paths.

[00:33:10] But they bonded very quickly over their common methods and goal.

[00:33:15] Burns taught Taylor these three lessons that he believed in.

[00:33:19] He said the first was God's purpose in permitting his servants to undergo suffering and frustration.

[00:33:25] The second was the importance of evangelism as the great work of the church.

[00:33:30] And the third was the place of lay evangelists as a lost order in the church.

[00:33:35] And that scripture required it to be restored.

[00:33:38] And so those were a few kind of theological topics that they talked about during their short time there.

[00:33:45] Hey, we'd love to be like sitting on that table listening to them at night, you know, in some village somewhere.

[00:33:50] Burns is a passionate man for God.

[00:33:52] At one point, Taylor described seeing them like this whole village came together to worship an idol.

[00:33:57] And while they were worshiping with his idol, Burns just got up on stage and started yelling them like,

[00:34:01] This is wrong.

[00:34:02] You're sinning.

[00:34:03] If you don't stop the ceremony, you need to stop.

[00:34:05] You guys think you're going to go to hell with these kind of things like paganism doesn't work.

[00:34:08] And so he's a very passionate guy.

[00:34:11] But Taylor loved him and thought he was just the best.

[00:34:13] Eventually, Hudson, Taylor, and Burns will part ways.

[00:34:15] Both sad that they had to leave each other, but glad that they had met each other after all.

[00:34:19] We could keep going about Burns' life.

[00:34:21] Again, this could easily turn to martyrs and missionaries.

[00:34:24] At one point, he'll be arrested for being a British spy.

[00:34:26] That'll cause him a bunch of problems.

[00:34:27] He'll make lots of progress in different parts of China.

[00:34:30] But finally, in 1867, he moves to a part of China today called Liaoning.

[00:34:35] And I appreciate this part of China because it was the part of China I lived in for a year when my wife and I had only been married for a couple years.

[00:34:42] We there.

[00:34:43] And he moved there.

[00:34:44] They needed a missionary to go out there.

[00:34:46] No one was there at the time.

[00:34:47] So he goes up there.

[00:34:48] But he doesn't last very long because it is very cold there.

[00:34:51] And he dies probably just due to not being acclimated to the cold.

[00:34:55] And again, as somebody who has lived there, it is really, really cold in that part of China.

[00:34:59] So I can kind of understand.

[00:35:01] You think of China, you usually think of tropical and, you know, rain foresty maybe or temples or big cities.

[00:35:08] It's humid.

[00:35:09] It's not in that part of China.

[00:35:10] It's freezing cold.

[00:35:11] There are many, many things to say about him and his influence from his revivals in Scotland to his ministry in China to translation work he did to directing missions in the villages.

[00:35:22] This man was just a guy who had a mighty ministry that touched the lives of many, many people.

[00:35:27] Not only did he interact with and network with people all over the world, but he directly touched the lives of two of the most famous people in the 1800s in terms of church history, Robert Murray McChain and Hudson Taylor.

[00:35:38] Now listen as we hear him give the funeral sermon for Robert Murray McChain.

[00:35:43] It's still just a few years out before he heads to China himself.

[00:36:01] Romans 830

[00:36:03] And those whom he predestined, he also called.

[00:36:07] And those whom he called, he also justified.

[00:36:10] And those whom he justified, he also glorified.

[00:36:14] The design of the gospel is to bring many sons to glory.

[00:36:19] Now we cannot speak long about this.

[00:36:21] But we may at least note that when God's people are glorified, they will be delivered from all evil of every kind.

[00:36:29] And then they will be delivered finally, perfectly, from all sin.

[00:36:33] Yes, when they reach glory, there will be a final and an eternal separation between their souls and sin.

[00:36:40] This is a prominent part of the glory to which they are raised.