You give them drink from your river of delights Psalm 36:8

• DAY 7 MORNING PSALM 35-36

• DAY 7 EVENING PSALM 37

On the evening of 24th May 1738, John Wesley wrote. ‘I felt my heart strangely warmed. I felt I did trust in Christ, Christ alone for salvation: And an assurance was given me, that he had taken away my sins, even mine, and saved me from the law of sin and death.’ The Reformation truth that by grace we are saved through faith had profoundly impacted John Wesley’s heart. Rupert Davies thinks it may be properly called Wesley’s evangelical conversion, and sees in it a complete turning-point in his life, experientially, psychologically and theologically. Schmidt devotes a chapter of almost one hundred pages to what he unambiguously entitles “the conversion”, in which “theory had become fact, expectation had become fulfillment, desire had become possession.” Dean Carpenter considers it “one of the three most momentous conversions in Christian history,” along with those of Paul and Augustine.”

Before Wesley could preach the Good News of the Gospel to England he needed to receive it himself, and this had now happened. He preached a gospel of grace.’Scores of entries in his journal are simply a variation on that theme.’ I offered the grace of God,' ‘I offered the redemption that is in Christ Jesus,' ‘I proclaimed the name of the Lord,' ‘I proclaimed Christ crucified.’ 'I proclaimed the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ.'’ I proclaimed free salvation,' ‘I declared the free grace of God,' ‘ I exhorted the wicked to forsake his way,’ 'I began to call sinners to repentance,' 'I invited all guilty helpless sinners.’

Wesley’s preaching to the poor in England was a river of grace. Wesley had felt the grace of God himself and later it was his desire that his audience would not just hear it, but feel it too. “it was his burning preoccupation’, says Skevington –Wood, ‘I am amazed at this people,' Wesley confessed after preaching in Edinburgh, (many years later) , 'use the most cutting words, and apply them in the most pointed manner, still they hear, but feel no more than the seats they sit on.’

• ‘Come to me all who are thirsty’ says Isaiah. Lord we pray for a new spiritual thirst and a new spiritual hunger in our land. Have mercy on the lost, those who are completely unchurched. Pour out a river of grace on our land. Give them drink from your river of delights, Lord. Just as John Wesley felt the depths of YOUR love in the depths of HIS heart and went on to preach a gospel of grace to the minds and the hearts of a poor and needy nation, do it again Lord.

REFERENCES

Skevington-Wood, A. The burning heart John Wesley: Evangelist,Cliff College Publishing, 150

Davies, R . E. Methodism, 57-60

Schmidt, Vol 1, John Wesley: A theological Biography, 263

Carpenter, Eighteenth century Church and People, 197

Wesley, J. Journal 174 4th April, 1739; vol III p429, 15th September, 1749;p444, 24th October 1749; vol IV p202, 17th April 1757, vol III p281, 24th February, 1747, vol 11, p185, 29th April 1739, vol IV, p56, 28th March, 1753, vol III, p334, 21st February, 1748, p88 30th September, 1783.

You lifted me out of the depths Psalm 30:1

• DAY 6 MORNING PSALM 29-31

• DAY 6 EVENING PSALM 32-34

We come now to the climax both of Wesley’s quest for spiritual reality, and of his preparation at God’s hands for his supreme work as an evangelist. 1738 was the decisive year of his life, and 24th May the day of his conversion. Everything had been leading up to this Aldersgate Street experience as the crisis and turning –point of his career. It was what happened on the 24th May, 1738 which made Wesley an evangelist. It released him for his true vocation. Wesley came into a place of saving faith. In his Journal entry for Wednesday 24 May 1738, he says 'In the afternoon I was asked to go to St Paul’s. The anthem was•De profundis based on Psalm 130 : ( which reads)

1. Out of the depths, I cry to you Lord;

2. O Lord hear my voice, Let your ears be attentive to my cry for mercy.

3. If you O Lord kept a record of sins, O Lord who could stand?

4. But with you there is forgiveness, therefore you are feared.

5. I wait for the Lord my soul waits, and in his word I put my hope.

6. My soul waits for the Lord more than watchmen wait for the morning, more than watchmen wait for the morning.

7. O Israel, put your hope in the Lord, for with the Lord is unfailing love and with him is full redemption.

8. He himself will redeem Israel from all their sins .

John Wesley was deeply touched by the music and by the words – a seed was planted . Later that day he met with a group of friends who were reading from the book of Romans While meeting with these friends he heard Luther’s ‘Preface to Romans’ which reads….‘God judges what is in the depths of the heart. Therefore his law also makes demands on the depths of the heart and doesn't let the heart rest content in works; rather it punishes as hypocrisy and lies all works done apart from the depths of the heart.’ Wesley suddenly saw that despite having been to church, despite having been a missionary – he saw for the very first time the extent of his sin and the extent to which God by grace and by grace alone saves us 'out of the depths.' Wesley famously says in his Journal. 'About a quarter before nine, while he was describing the change which God works in the heart through faith in Christ, I felt my heart strangely warmed.'

• Lord you were attentive to John Wesley’s cry for mercy, you heard his cry, you saved him out of the depths, you revealed to him his inability to save himself and the full extent of your grace and through him you sparked a fire of revival that blazed throughout our land. I cry to you from the depths of my heart… save me and save my nation. Be attentive to my cry for mercy. I wait for you Lord. I put my hope in you Lord, for with you there is unfailing love…. with you there is full redemption. Lord hear my cry!

REFERENCES

Skevington-Wood, A. The burning heart John Wesley: Evangelist,Cliff College Publishing, 59

Wesley, J. Journal, 103

Luther, M. Preface to Romans http://www.ccel.org/l/luther/romans/pref_romans.html

For in the day of trouble he will keep me safe Psalm 27:5

• DAY 5 MORNING PSALM 24-26

• DAY 5 EVENING PSALM 27-28

Wesley made no secret of the fact that the main purpose of his mission to Georgia in America was to advance his own spiritual life. 'My chief motive , to which all the rest are subordinate, ' he said ‘is the hope of saving my own soul.'.. ' I hope to learn the true sense of the Gospel of Christ by preaching it to the heathen… They have no comments to construe away the text. ' They are as little children, humble, willing to learn, and eager to do the will of God; and consequently they shall know of every doctrine I preach whether it be of God. By these therefore I hope to learn the purity of the faith which was once delivered to the saints.' Wesley was headed for disillusionment and he soon experienced it.

Wesley did not formally resign from his post in Georgia. He fled from a situation which largely through his own clumsiness, had got completely out of control. He was actually faced with legal proceedings, because he had repelled Sophy Williamson from Holy Communion. The matter was not helped by the fact that he had been involved with her in an unhappy love affair before her marriage. The whole atmosphere in Georgia was now extremely uncongenial , and eventually Wesley left in disgust and indignation. The official list of early settlers recorded his ignominious departure with the short entry 'run away'. .. When Wesley set foot back in England he had reached a critical point in his life and ministry. Up to now, his entire spiritual journey had been simply a refined way of trusting in his own works. He now saw at last the futility of this course. Yet where could he turn? He did not know. But God had it all in hand.

Wesley realized that he had come to the end of chapter. That was the positive contribution of the Georgia experience. He realized that his ecclesiastical rigorism had led him to a dead end. It had also brought him into contact with Moravians , with their emphasis on justification by faith and the need for personal conversion. It forced him to admit that his own attempt to earn salvation had gained him nothing but near despair.

• Lord we pray for those in our country who are trapped in sin, those in our country who are living behind closed doors, living lives of quiet desperation, who do not know that there is a free gift of salvation that does not need to be earned, that has been paid for at a price. You are our deliverer, who rescues us from all our troubles who saves us from all despair. Rescue us and save us. We pray for the end of one chapter and the beginning of the new. Turn the page Lord …and do a new thing in our land!

REFERENCES

Skevington-Wood, A. The burning heart John Wesley: Evangelist,Cliff College Publishing, 56-57

I will fear no evil Psalm 23:4

• DAY 4 MORNING PSALM 19-21

• DAY 4 EVENING PSALM 22-23

After training as an Anglican clergyman and obtaining a Fellowship at Oxford, John Wesley set out on a mission, crossing the Atlantic Ocean to Georgia in North America, to convert the native American Indians. ‘On the evening of Saturday, January 17, 1736, John and Charles Wesley were sitting with Colonel Oglethorpe and others in the state cabin a ship, called ‘The Simonds’ far out in the Atlantic. The sea had been rough, and the clouds had been thickening all day. Now the pitching of the ship became more alarming every minute. Suddenly a huge wave ‘burst into the cabin….with a noise and shock almost like that of a cannon.” A bureau had sheltered Wesley, but he was shocked to discover himself “afraid to die”. At midnight he added a note to his diary: “Stormy still, and afraid!” The Wesleys and their fellow passengers had been three months on board already, for ‘The Simonds’, held off the Isle of Wight by contrary winds, had only cleared the English Channel in the second week of December. Wesley as chaplain, had been much impressed by a group of 26 German emigrants on board. They were members of the Church of the United Brethren, colloquially known as the Moravian church… but had been revived by young Count Zinzendorf.

The Germans were always cheerful. They undertook servile tasks which English emigrants were too proud or lazy to consider, and when crewmen or passengers abused them, they turned the other cheek. At their services they sang hymns of great beauty. The Church of England’s metrical psalms sounded stilted in contrast. The Wesleys.. had pledged themselves to continue their introspective diaries and the rigorous Oxford Methodist system of prayers, readings, fasts and good works. The Moravians were not impressed, for they detected that Wesley’s tight routine was chiefly intended to acquire merit. They offered him on contrast, the great Reformation doctrine of justification by faith. They endeavoured to show him ‘a more excellent way.’ But he says that he understood it not at first. ‘I was too learned and too wise. So that it seemed foolishness to me. And I continued preaching and trusting in that righteousness whereby no flesh can be justified. During the days of the storm, Wesley tried to keep to his rigorous program but could not throw off his fear as the ship rocked and jarred, ‘with the utmost violence.’ The gale died down but another struck a few days later. Again a great wave knocked him over. He found he was unhurt yet ‘could but say to himself, ‘ How is it that thou hast no faith? Being still unwilling to die.’

• Thank you that through the cross and your resurrection from the dead we can be born again by the Spirit.. You did NOT give us a spirit that makes us a SLAVE AGAIN TO FEAR but a spirit of SONSHIP. Thank you Lord that even though we walk through the shadow of death we need fear no evil. Open our eyes, wake us up afresh to this truth, that he who believes in you, will not perish but have eternal life. We pray for a fresh revelation of this truth that ALL can be born again by the spirit of God to impact our land. Awaken our nation to new life in Christ ONCE AGAIN.

REFERENCES

Skevington-Wood, A. The burning heart John Wesley: Evangelist,Cliff College Publishing, 53-54

Pollock, J. Wesley, The Preacher, Kingsway Publishing, 67-69

The foundations of the earth laid bare… Psalm 18:15

• DAY 3 MORNING PSALM 15-17

• DAY 3 EVENING PSALM 18

Before the Methodist revival began in 1738, England in the first half of the eighteenth century was in deep trouble. It was ‘ in a period of moral disorder.The prime minister for the twenty years 1722-1742 Sir Robert Walpole, lived in undisguised adultery with his mistress Maria Skellett, whom he had installed at the Old Lodge at Richmond Park. The amusements of the day were lewd and indecent and the nation found itself enmeshed in the twin snares of drink and gambling. The passion for gin-drinking began to affect the masses of the population around 1724 and 'spread with the rapidity and the violence of an epidemic' until it was ‘irrevocably implanted in the nation. Meanwhile the statistics of violent crime soared alarmingly, and hangings became so frequent that Dr Johnson ironically expressed his fear that the navy might run short of ropes.’

The low moral standards resulted from an indifference to the claims of the Christian faith. Thomas Secker, the Bishop of Oxford, said ‘an open and professed disregard of religion is become, through a variety of unhappy causes, the distinguishing character of the age.’ Goldsmith said that sermons ‘from the pulpit are generally dry, methodical and unaffecting; delivered with the most insipid calmness, so that should the peaceful preacher lift his head over the cushion, he might discover his audience, instead of being awakened to remorse, actually sleeping over his mechanical and labored composition.’

Today we too are in a period of moral disorder. Every day in Britain at least 507 babies are aborted, 190 women are raped, there are 322 divorces, and 85 teenage pregnancies. Drug addiction, and alocoholism are rampant and pornography is a multibillion £ industry which some have described as a plague among our young people. As a nation we have drifted a very long way from our strong Christian heritage. In yesterday’s newspaper 2nd October it was reported that the texts that once every school pupil knew by heart such as the Lord’s prayer and 10 commandments are so unfamiliar that the Church of England is introducing a course to teach the basic tenets of Christianity, ‘The pilgrim course’. Britain needs waking up again.

•Lord as a nation we have abandoned our Christian heritage . Wake us up! You moved powerfully in the 18th century through Wesley attacking those same evils of license and moral decay, through the preaching of repentance and conversion. Breathe on the foundations of our nation again Lord. Lay them bare. Expose the valleys of the sea, Lord. Rebuke the evils of our day. Awake the church out of its lethargy. Send another awakening to our nation Lord. Breathe on us again we pray!

REFERENCES

Skevington-Wood, A. The burning heart John Wesley: Evangelist,Cliff College Publishing, 9-14

Department of Health abortion statistics, 2012

www.gov.uk/government

www.ons.gov.uk

www.pilgrimcourse.org/the-course

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

Set apart Psalm 4:3

Matthew Henry says concerning the Psalms' There is no one book of scripture that is more helpful to the devotions of the saints than this, and it has been so in all ages of the church.' Over the next 30 days this blog will encourage daily reading of a few psalms morning and evening, accompanied by a devotional inspired by John Wesley's life,encouraging prayer for a national awakening ONCE AGAIN,in England.

•DAY 1 MORNING PSALM 1-5

•DAY 1 EVENING PSALM 6 - 8

‘With a shrewd flash inside John Wesley once said “If I were to write my own life I should begin it before I was born.” That was his typically realistic way of paying tribute to the past. Ancestry has its effect on personality and we cannot easily set aside Wesley’s family tree. His preparation for the work of evangelism, to which God had destined him, began long before he came into the world. Like the prophet Jeremiah, he was aware that the divine purpose stretched back to influence his antecedents. 'Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart; I appointed you as a prophet to the nations.'(Jeremiah 1:5) Referring to Wesley’s untiring ministry throughout the land, “What thrust him out on these ceaseless journeyings?” In a strict sense, “one could say ‘it was in his blood’". John Wesley’s father Samuel was an Anglican. John grew up in a rectory at Epworth. John Wesley’s mother Suzanna ‘was probably the dominant personality in the Epworth household. Samuel married her in 1688 and she brought with her a unique endowment. As the daughter of Doctor Annesley she inherited a rich tradition. She had grown up in a Puritan household where demanding educational standards accompanied disciplined devotional and moral teaching.’

‘Her carefully ordered timetable, her regular times SET APART for meditation and self-examination before God, her keeping of a spiritual journal or day-book, her observance of the strict Puritan Sabbath were all part of her ‘method’ of life to use the Puritan key-word which was current long before John Wesley began his work.” It is not too much to say, therefore that Wesley “absorbed Puritan influences with his mother’s milk. The Effect of this mingled Anglican and Puritan inheritance on John Wesley was marked. He remained a Church of England man to his dying day, with a strong sense of discipline and a desire to bring about reform within. His overriding concern was for the good of souls, and where existing church order stood in his way, he did not hesitate to lay it aside. The rebel under the skin would keep bursting through.

• In the foreword to John Mulinde’s ‘Set apart for God’ Charlie Cleverly, vicar of St Aldates, Oxford writes‘ I believe we need to see in the West every Christian an intercessor, in every home a prayer altar, every church become a house of prayer and in every town a city-wide prayer centre, but before all these we need people SET APART. Today we pray with the psalmist, Psalm 4:3 ‘the Lord has set apart the godly for himself’ Lord, you set John Wesley apart to be your vessel to see a national awakening unto revival in the eighteenth century, do it again Lord…. set your people apart for a national awakening today. Prepare me Lord.. SET ME APART LORD, I am here to do your will.

REFERENCES

Skevington-Wood, A. The burning heart John Wesley: Evangelist,Cliff College Publishing,19
Mulinde,J. Set Apart for God, Foreword,10