• DAY 29 MORNING PSALM 139-140
• DAY 29 EVENING PSALM 141-143
In 1769, Wesley and the Methodist conference set apart two lay preachers for the American colonies; their departure involved nothing new, for they were to behave like itinerant preachers in Britain.
Two years later a young itinerant from Midlands, Francis Asbury volunteered to join them and sailed for Philadelphia. Asbury is credited for recruiting and organizing a band of selfless and radical riders of whom the world was not worthy, that would change America’s future forever. This group of rough yet broken men would travel the frontiers of America for decades, taking the Gospel to the most remote places in America. In a time of American history where it was easier to stay in one place and live in the comfort of the few cities that existed, these men refused comfort and were driven by the ancient dream of Eden to see man and God live in intimate fellowship. They rode on. Over half of them died before reaching age 33 and their annual pay, if any, was around 50 dollars.
“No family was too poor, no house too filthy, no town too remote, and no people too ignorant to receive the good news that life could be better.”
They did not do it for the love of money, fame nor an affinity towards human comfort. They were marked by the same determination as Asbury that every home in America would hear and believe the Gospel. When Asbury arrived in America there were a few hundred Methodist followers and a few dozen preachers, but by the time he died there were over 210,000 followers and over 4,000 preachers. America would never be the same because of these wild-eyed revivalists. (These early American circuit riders are the inspiration for a new youth movement of radical evangelists in the USA at present see www.thecircuitrider.com)
Wesley rejoiced in the spread of the gospel in America through the work of Asbury and Coke who followed him. They shared his own vision that if Christians lived holy lives the heathen would be unable to resist the message of Christ. The “God of love” declared Wesley prophetically, “will then prepare his messengers and make a way into the polar regions into the deep recesses of America and into the interior parts of Africa; yea into the heart of China and Japan, with countries adjoining to them. And ‘their sound’ will then ‘go forth into all lands, and their voice to the ends of the earth.’”
• Lord, raise up a new breed of wild-eyed revivalists in our day. We thank you for Francis Asbury and the early Methodist circuit riders and we say ‘Lord, do it again’ unleash another wave of passionate young evangelists with neither love of money or love of comfort but a passionate desire to take the gospel to the ends of the earth. Do it again in our day we pray Lord!
REFERENCES
Pollock, J. The preacher, Kingsway, 250-251
www.thecircuitrider.com/about-us/history
Wesley, J. Letter to Asbury , 1788.
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