You brought us to a place of abundance Psalm 65:12

• DAY 12 MORNING PSALM 62-64

• DAY 12 EVENING PSALM 65-67

George Whitfield, having recently returned from America, had hoped that the churches might be open to him in Bristol, but he found the authorities stood in his way. Impatient with delay, the spiritual needs of the colliers pulled at his heart strings. One Saturday afternoon on 17 February 1739 the evangelist walked out to the village. He climbed a hill and spoke to a couple of hundred colliers. “Blessed be God that I have now broken the ice! He wrote afterwards.” By the month of March the numbers had risen to as many as 20, 000 ‘The fire is kindled in the country’, he cried “and I know all the devils in hell shall not be able to quench it.” Wesley wrote in his Journal how he was invited by Whitfield to join him preaching in Bristol:-

Saturday March 10 During my stay [in London] ….I had no thought of leaving London, when I received, after several others, a letter from Mr. Whitefield and another from Mr. Seward entreating me, in the most pressing manner, to come to Bristol without delay. This I was not at all forward to do… we at length all agreed to decide it by lot. And by this it was determined I should go. On arriving in Bristol he writes:

Thursday, 29 March. In the evening I reached Bristol and met Mr. Whitefield there. I could scarcely reconcile myself at first to this strange way of preaching in the fields, of which he set me an example on Sunday; I had been all my life (till very lately) so tenacious of every point relating to decency and order that I should have thought the saving of souls almost a sin if it had not been done in a church.

Sunday,1 April. In the evening (Mr. Whitefield being gone) I began expounding our Lord’s Sermon on the Mount (one pretty remarkable precedent of field-preaching, though I suppose there were churches at that time also), to a little society which was accustomed to meet once or twice a week in Nicholas Street.

Monday, 2 April At four in the afternoon, I submitted to be more vile and proclaimed in the highways the glad tidings of salvation, speaking from a little eminence in a ground adjoining to the city, to about three thousand people. The Scripture on which I spoke was this (is it possible anyone should be ignorant that it is fulfilled in every true minister of Christ?): “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the broken-hearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord” [see Isa. 61:1, 2; Luke 4:18, 19].

• Wesley stepped out of HIS comfort zone to proclaim the glad tidings of salvation and 3000 gathered to hear Him. Bring US to that place of abundance, Lord. Open up a spacious place for us to preach the Gospel here in England today. Help us to yield every bit of fear and reticence and to step out of our comfort zones to proclaim the Gospel in our day however strange and embarrassing it may feel at first. Kindle the fire of your Gospel in us, and use us, even us, we pray.

REFERENCES

Skevington-Wood, A. The burning heart John Wesley: Evangelist,Cliff College Publishing,9

George Whitfield's Journals ed Iain Murray 216, 17 Feb 1739

Wesley, J. Journal, Vol 1, 176,185