Lift me up from the gates of death Psalm 9:13

• DAY 2 MORNING PSALM 9-11

• DAY 2 EVENING PSALM 12-14

‘The name of Henry Perlee Parker is forgotten, but a painting of his is familiar to many who have had no interest in art. He depicted on canvas the scene at Epworth Rectory on 9th February 1709 when John Wesley was a boy and was rescued from a raging fire. Reproductions of that original by Parker are scattered all over the land, in innumerable vestries and halls. It was a very dramatic event - the old building with its timbers well alight, the scorched escape of the rector’s considerable family, the face of John peering through the curtains, the resourceful villager who ran to the window and encouraged another to climb on his shoulders to reach John, seconds before the roof crashed in and Samuel Wesley then inviting all to pray - ‘Come neighbours. Let us give thanks to God. He has given me all my eight children. Let the house go, I am rich enough.”

Wesley was not yet six years old when this happened, and it is not surprising that at such an impressionable age it stamped itself on his memory. It became a sign of God’s hand upon him. Increasingly he realized that he had been delivered for a purpose. He referred to himself in the words of scripture as “a brand plucked out of the fire.” Zechariah 3:2. Each succeeding year he observed the anniversary of that remarkable night. He confessed that it was “the strongest impression I had till I was 23 or 24 years old.” After his conversion, Wesley recognized himself as a brand plucked from the burning in a spiritual sense also. He interpreted the rescue at Epworth as having predicted his salvation in preparing him for the mission God gave him. When he sat for his portrait, later in his life, the background was a house in flames, with the words beneath “Is not this a brand plucked out of the fire.” ’

• Lord, you lifted up John Wesley from the gates of death, as a brand plucked from the fire. You had mercy on him, and you had mercy on our nation. Lord have mercy on us today. You are our God… you came to seek and save the lost. Come and seek and save us today, Jesus. Without you sovereignly intervening we are destined for destruction. Lord, have mercy on us and our nation, and lift us up from the gates of death today.

REFERENCES

Skevington-Wood, A. The burning heart John Wesley: Evangelist,Cliff College Publishing,29