DAY 16

MORNING

PSALMS 79–81

Psalm 80:3 “Restore us, O God, make your face shine upon us; that we may be saved.”

Cut to the Heart

Wesley continued to preach and travel around the country at a breath-taking pace, seeing the Holy Spirit bring conviction of sin and salvation wherever he went, and much rejoicing as a result. Wesley wrote in his Journal:121

Tuesday April 27 1739

All Newgate rang with the cries of those whom the word of God cut to the heart. Two of whom were in a moment filled with joy, to the astonishment of those that beheld them.

Sunday April 29 1739

I declared the free grace of God to about 4000 people ... I then went to Clifton, a mile from Bristol ... and thence returned to a little plain, near Hannam-Mount, where about 3000 were present. After dinner I went to Clifton again. From Clifton we went to Rose Green where were ... near 7000 and thence to Gloucester Lane Society. After which was our first love-feast in Baldwin Street. O how has God renewed my strength who used ten years ago to be so faint and weary with preaching twice in one day?

Tuesday 1 May 1739

Many of those who had been long in darkness, saw the dawn of a great light; and ten persons, I afterwards found, then began to say in faith “My Lord and my God.” A Quaker who stood by ... and was biting his lips and knitting his brows, when he dropped down as thunderstruck. The agony he was in was even terrible to behold. We besought God not to lay folly to his charge. And he soon lifted up his head, and cried aloud, “Now I know thou art a prophet of the Lord.”

Prayer

Pierce our hearts with the cutting edge of your word. May our towns and cities ring with the cries of those whom the word of God has cut to the heart. Shine your face on our land that we may be saved. We pray for a new dawn, a new day to break. Restore us, O God, we pray.

121 Wesley, J. Journal, April 27th - May 1st 1739 , Vol 1, 189, 190.

DAY 16

EVENING

PSALMS 82–85

Psalm 84:5 “Blessed are those whose strength is in you ... who have set their hearts on pilgrimage.”

Incessant Pace

It is difficult to believe, but Wesley was once criticised for taking life too easily. The one who accused him was clearly not in touch with reality. She said that he was “laying up treasures on this earth”. His reply was fitting: “I told her, God knew me better, and if he had sent her, he would have sent her with a more proper message.”122

The main reason for Wesley’s incessant pace he made very apparent. in 1781 when he was still travelling constantly even in his old age, he said, “I must go on; for a dispensation of the gospel is committed to me; and woe is me if I preach not the gospel.”123 He knew that the Lord had commissioned him to preach the Gospel. Revival was sweeping the land 
as he preached, and that the Lord himself was renewing his strength was his powerful testimony.
 John Fletcher, who travelled with John Wesley on many journeys, paid him this tribute that he kept on going “with unwearied diligence through the three kingdoms, calling sinners to repentance and to the healing fountain of Jesus’ blood. Though oppressed with the weight of near 70 years, and the cares of nearly 30,000 souls, he shames still, by his unabated zeal and immense labours, all the young ministers in England, perhaps in Christendom. He has generously blown the gospel trumpet and rode 20 miles before most of the professors who despise his labours have left their downy pillows. As he begins the day, the week, the year, so he concludes them, still intent on extensive services for the glory of the Redeemer and the good of souls.”124

Prayer

My strength is in YOU, Lord, and I have set my heart on pilgrimage. I pray for YOUR resources and YOUR enabling to restore the Gospel to England. I cannot do it in my strength. YOU are mighty to save and to deliver the captives. I look to YOU, Lord. Bring revival to our land, a fresh breath of your Holy Spirit that renews, restores and refreshes and brings revelation from above. My soul yearns, even faints for the courts of the Lord, my heart and my flesh cry out to you, Lord, the living God!

122 Wesley, J. Journal, Vol IV, January 1760 , Vol 4, 364.quoted in Skevington-Wood, The burning heart,115.

123 Wesley, J. Journal, Vol XIII, A Plain account of Kingswood School, 1781, Vol 4, 267.


124 MacDonald, F.W, John W. Fletcher, 118. quoted in Skevington-Wood, The burning heart,124.