DAY 3

MORNING

PSALMS 15–17

Psalm 15:1 “Lord, who may dwell in your sanctuary? Who may live on your holy hill?”

The Holy Club

After being raised by his highly disciplined mother, John Wesley went to school at Charterhouse. He attended chapel and continued to say his prayers morning and evening and to read his bible, but in this season he was no longer subject to his mother’s strict discipline.30

He went to university to read Classics and later became a clergyman and an Oxford
 don. while preparing for holy orders, his mother urged him to “enter now upon serious examination of yourself that you may know whether you have a serious hope of salvation by Jesus Christ.”31 John Wesley started writing in an old red notebook, which had been his grandfather’s, keeping a record of his temptations using shorthand.32

in August 1730, John Wesley, Charles Wesley and William Morgan started “a little society” daily visiting prisoners (of whom there were some debtors) and twice a week reading prayers. This was the beginnings of what came to be known as the “Holy Club”. “During John Wesley’s teaching days at Oxford University the Holy Club observed a strict discipline which John devised himself but which followed closely the pattern of other similar societies.” Charitable work, including the visiting of prisoners and helping the poor, was a key part of the pattern of his life. “The members of the club spent an hour, morning and evening, in private prayer. At nine, twelve and three o’clock they recited a collect and at all times they examined themselves closely, watching for signs of grace and trying to preserve a high degree of religious fervour. They noted in cipher [that is, coded] diaries all the particulars of their daily employment. one hour each day was set apart for meditation. They fasted twice a week, observed all the feasts of the Church and received the sacraments every sunday. before going into company they prepared their conversation, so that words might not be spoken without purpose. The primitive Church, insofar as they had knowledge of it, was to be taken as their pattern.”33

There were a number of nicknames 
that Wesley and his friends received.
They were derisively called “Methodists”, “Sacramentarians”, “Enthusiasts”,
“Bible Moths”, the “Reforming club” and “Supererogation men’. Of all these, the name “Holy Club” was the most popular one among Oxford students. Although they were called Methodists, this was still ten years before the Methodist revival began.34

Prayer

Lord, I pray for a revival of holiness in me today. Create in me a pure heart, O God. Show me where there is an offensive way in me, where there is slander on my tongue and where I do not keep my word. I turn away from these things Lord and I turn to you and receive your cleansing, Lord. How wonderful is your dwelling place, O Lord God Almighty. I long to live on your holy hill.

30 Pollock, Wesley: The Preacher, 25.


31 Pollock, Wesley: The Preacher, 33.


32 Pollock, Wesley: The Preacher, 33.


33 Vulliamy,C.E. John Wesley, Epworth Press, 55 quoted in Snyder, H. The Radical Wesley and patterns for Church Renewal, 18.

34 Snyder, The Radical Wesley, 18, 19.

DAY 3

EVENING

PSALM 18

Psalm 18:28 “You, O Lord. keep my lamp burning.”

A Candle That Shall Not Be Put Out

In 1730, John Wesley preached once a month in Oxford at the Castle and at Bocardo, the prison where most debtors were. over 150 years earlier, Archbishop Cranmer and bishops Ridley and Latimer had lain there at that very same prison, before they were burned at the stake for their faith in 1555.35 Some of Wesley’s biographers link his life to the prayers of Latimer and Ridley.

Latimer prayed in the Tower of London while he waited for his execution, “‘that
God of his mercy would restore his Gospel
to England ONCE AGAIN’; and these words ‘once again’ he did so beat into the ears of the Lord God, as though he had seen God before him, and spoken to him face to face.”36 Just under two centuries later, the Lord moved powerfully, bringing revival to England through John Wesley and the Methodist awakening. one biographer saw John Wesley’s life as a direct answer to that prayer of Hugh Latimer in the Tower of London. Once again the Gospel was restored to our land.

Ridley’s words to Latimer as they were being burnt at the stake, on 16 october 1555, had been “be of good comfort, Master Ridley, and play the man. We shall this day light such a candle, by God’s grace in England, as I trust shall never be put out.”37 One historian suggests that John Wesley’s life in the eighteenth century was like a blazing fire, as he travelled around the country on horseback proclaiming the Gospel of Jesus Christ.38

As a boy, John Wesley had nearly died in
a fire at his father’s rectory in Epworth. He referred to himself in the words of scripture as “a brand plucked out of the fire”(Zechariah 3:2). Many years later John Wesley’s heart was “strangely warmed”39 at a quarter to nine at Aldersgate on 24 May 1738, when
he heard Luther’s preface to Romans being read aloud. wesley’s evangelistic zeal then led him to travel on horseback a quarter of a million miles, and the Gospel was preached in England once again. Skevington-wood says, “The symbolism of fire links the upper room in Aldersgate street with the blazing parsonage at Epworth. The brand plucked from the burning had now found his destiny. Henceforth the flame within would carry him throughout the land to ignite the tinder of revival.”40

“Guarding the holy fire; that was what 
he was doing,” writes Prof Bonamy Dobree. “He was himself a flame going up and down the land, lighting such candles as by God’s grace would never be put out; and as one reads [Wesley’s] colossal journal one gets the impression of this flame, never waning, never smoky, darting from point to point, lighting up the whole kingdom, till in due course it burnt out the body it inhabited.”41

Prayer

Lord, you reached down from on high and took hold of John Wesley and set him apart to be your vessel to see a national awakening unto revival in the 18th century. Do it again, Lord! Do not let the legacy of Wesley burn out ... do not let the candle of your Gospel burn out. Let it go up and down the land again, Lord. Let it burn brightly across this land ONCE AGAIN.

35 Pollock, Wesley: The Preacher, 49


36 Foxe, J. Book of Martyrs, Whitaker, 278.


37 Foxe, Martyrs, 309.


38 Dobree, J. Wesley. 96–97, quoted in Skevington-Wood, The burning heart, 68.


39 Wesley, J The Complete Works of John Wesley, Volume 1, 24th May 1738, 103.


40 Skevington-Wood, A. The burning heart. John Wesley: Evangelist, 67.


41 Dobree, J. Wesley. 96–97, quoted in Skevington-Wood, The burning heart, 68.