DAY 17

MORNING

PSALMS 86–88

Psalm 88:1 “The God who saves me.”

Rescued from the Enemy’s Oppression

Wesley saw many individuals come to saving faith and many delivered and set free from deception. He tells the story in his Journal 125 of a weaver who was very sceptical at first, but who was powerfully delivered from the oppression of the enemy.

Tuesday May 2 1739

I did not mention ... a weaver who was at Baldwin-street the night before. He was (I understood) a man of a regular life and conversation, one that constantly attended the public prayers and sacrament, and was zealous for the Church, and against Dissenters of every denomination. Being informed ... that people fell into strange fits at the societies he came to see and judge for himself but he was less satisfied than before insomuch that he went about to his acquaintance one after another, till one in the morning, and laboured above measure to convince them it was a delusion of the devil. We were going home when one met us in the street and informed us that (the weaver) was fallen raving mad. It seems he had sat down to dinner, but had a mind first to end a sermon he had borrowed on “Salvation by faith.” In reading the last page he changed colour, fell off his chair, and began screaming terribly and beating himself against the ground. The neighbours were alarmed, and flocked together to the house. Between one and two I came in, and found him on the floor, the room being full of people, whom his wife would have kept without; but he cried aloud, “No; let them all come; let all the world see the just judgment of God.” Two or three men were holding him as well as they could. He immediately fixed his eyes upon me and, stretching out his hand cried, “Ay, this 
is he who I said was a deceiver of the people. But God has overtaken me. I said, it was all
 a delusion; but this is no delusion.” he then roared out, “O thou devil! Thou cursed devil. Yea thou legion of devils! Thou canst not stay. Christ will cast thee out. I know his work is begun. Tear me to pieces, if thou wilt; but thou canst not hurt me.” He then beat himself against the ground again; his breast having
 at the same time as in the pangs of death and great drops of sweat trickling down his face. We all betook ourselves to prayer. His pangs ceased and both his body and soul was set at liberty.

Prayer

Come and save and deliver me, Lord. Show me where I am bound and set me free. Ignite a revival in England that saves us from sin and selfishness and drives out every bit of darkness in our land. Bring strong conviction of sin. Open up your wells of salvation and deliverance, that the bodies and souls of the oppressed might be set at liberty. Lord, hear our cry!

125 Wesley, J. Journal, Tuesday May 2nd 1739 , Vol 1, 190, 191.

DAY 17

EVENING

PSALM 89

Psalm 89:1 “I will sing of the Lord’s great love for ever.”

Charles Wesley

Charles Wesley, brother of John 
and raised in the same household 
by Susanna, their mother, was overshadowed in many ways by his more well-known and more ‘forward’ brother. While John was attracted to the limelight, Charles retreated from it.126 However it was Charles Wesley who was responsible for the starting of the Holy Club in Oxford and it was Charles who first received the derisive nickname “Methodist” and used it as a badge of honour.127

It was Charles who composed the songs
 of the Methodist awakening and it was the hymns that he wrote that provided the means for the new converts to “express their new-found joy to the Lord ... Charles Wesley wrote an astonishing number of hymns, 400 of which are still used by various Christian groups today. He wrote about 9000 hymns in total and composed a hymn a day every day for nearly 25 years of his adult life. The Methodist hymns were composed of the life experiences of their author’s ministry and they also told of his ministry. The hymns were also aids in Charles personal devotions.”128 One historian has commented that if the bible were lost it might be possible to extract it from Charles Wesley’s hymns. Within his hymns the bible is contained “in solution”. “Charles’ language in poem, pulpit and in everyday speech was both shaped and informed by biblical expressions. His hymns are mosaics of biblical allusions.”129 There have been attempts to excavate the biblical source of the fragments of the bible that are contained in Charles Wesley’s hymns.

For example, if one line were to be analysed: “O for a thousand tongues to sing My great redeemer’s praise,
 The glories of my God and King, The triumphs of his grace.” It is clear that dozens of echoes of scriptural applications lie within just this one line.130

Prayer

We pray for the breaking of a new wave of worship and devotion to you, Lord Jesus, over our land. We will sing of your great love forever, Lord. May the composition of a fresh new wave of songs to you, Lord, expressing the newfound joy of brand new believers,
be one of the hallmarks of the national awakening that sweeps our nation. Come, Lord Jesus, come.

126 Tyson, J.R, Charles Wesley: A reader(1999), 3.


127 Tyson, J.R, Charles Wesley: A reader(1999), 5.


128 Tyson, J.R, Charles Wesley: A reader(1999), 21, 22.


129 http://churchsociety.org/issues_new/history/wesleychas/iss_history_wesleychas_Colquhoun-evangelist.asp

130 Charles Wesley, A reader, 34.