We will tell the next generation the praiseworthy deeds of the Lord Psalm 78:4

• DAY 15 MORNING PSALM 75-77

• DAY 15 EVENING PSALM 78

As the Awakening began to gather momentum in April 1739, many more people responded to Wesley’s preaching with signs following. Wesley relates in his journal entries how some young people were impacted :-

‘Tuesday April 21 1739.

…a young man was suddenly seized with a violent trembling all over and in a few minutes, the sorrows of his heart being enlarged, sunk down to the ground. But we ceased not calling upon God, till he raised him up full of ‘peace and joy in the Holy Ghost.’ On Easter-day it being a thorough rain, I could only preach at Newgate at eight in the morning and two in the afternoon; in a house near Hannah Mount at eleven, and in one near Rose- Green at five. At the society in the evening many were cut to the heart and many comforted.

Tuesday April 23 1739.

….In the evening at Baldwin Street, a young man, after a sharp (though short) agony but both of body and mind, found his soul filled with peace, knowing in whom he had believed.

April 25 1739.

To above 2000 at Baptist mills I explained that glorious scripture (describing the state of every true believe in Christ - everyone who by faith is born of God) Ye have not received the spirit of bondage again unto fear, but ye have received the spirit of adoption, whereby we cry ‘Abba, Father.'

April 26 1739.

While I was preaching at Newgate, on these words, ‘He that believeth hath everlasting life,’ I was insensibly led , without any previous design, to declare strongly and explicitly , that God willeth ‘all men to be’ thus ‘saved’ and to pray that ‘if this were not the truth of God, he would not suffer the blind to go out of the way; but if it were, he would bear witness to his word.’ Immediately one and another, and another sunk to the earth: They dropped on every side as thunderstruck. One of them cried aloud. We besought God in her behalf, and he turned her heaviness into joy. A second being in same agony, we called upon God for her also, and he spoke peace into her soul. In the evening I was again pressed in spirit to declare that ‘Christ gave himself a ransom for all.’ And almost before we called upon him to set his seal, he answered. One was so wounded by the word of the Spirit, that you would have imagined she could not live a moment. But immediately his abundant kindness was showed, and she loudly sang of his righteousness.’

• Lord we pray for the youth and the students in our land- the next generation. Let them hear the praiseworthy deeds of the Lord. Violently apprehend them with your deep and enduring love. Show them tangible evidence of your abundant kindness. Set them free from bondage, adopt them into your family, the family of God that they might receive a spirit of adoption, crying 'Abba Father.'

REFERENCES

Wesley, J. Journal, April 21-26th 1739 , Vol 1, 187 -189

He will deliver the needy who cry out Psalm 72:12

• DAY 14 MORNING PSALM 71-72

• DAY 14 EVENING PSALM 73-74

Wesley continued to preach to the poor, and God continued to confirm his word with signs following, as Wesley relates in his journal:-

'Tuesday April 17 1739.

At five in the afternoon I was at a little society in the Back Lane. The room in which we were was propped beneath, but the weight of people made the floor give way; so that in the beginning of expounding, the post which propped it fell down with a great noise. But the floor sank no farther; so that, after a little surprise at first, they quietly attended to the things that were spoken. Thence I went to Baldwin Street and expounded, as it came in course, the fourth chapter of the Acts. We then called upon God to confirm his word. Immediately one that stood by (to our no small surprise) cried out loud with the utmost vehemence, even as in the agonies of death. But we continued in prayer till “a new song was put in her mouth, a thanksgiving unto our God.” Soon after, two other persons (well known in this place, as labouring to live in all good conscience towards all men) were seized with strong pain, and constrained to roar for the disquietness of their heart.” But it was not long before they likewise burst forth into praise to God their Saviour. The last who called upon God as out of the belly of hell, was a stranger in Bristol. And in a short space he was overwhelmed with joy and love, knowing that God had healed his backslidings. So many living witnesses hath God that his hand is still “stretched out to heal,” and that “signs and wonders are even now wrought by his holy child Jesus.” ’

‘Wednesday April 18 1739.

In the evening …..a Quaker and a few others were admitted into the society. baptized the day before. But *** was scarcely able either to speak or look up…. The sorrows of death compassed her about the pains of hell got hold upon her. We poured out our complaints before God, and showed him of her trouble. And he soon showed he is a God ‘that heareth prayer’. She felt in herself that being justified freely, she had peace with God, through Jesus Christ. She rejoiced in hope of the glory of God, and the love of God was shed abroad in her heart.’

• Thank you for your promise Lord, that you will deliver the needy who cry out, and that you do hear our prayers. Lord, bring to birth another spiritual awakening in our land. Confirm your word with signs following as you have done before, as we see so clearly in the book of Acts and as you did in England in the Methodist revival of 1739. Deliver the needy who cry out. Let there be a bursting forth of praise to God on their lips. We pray for salvation and deliverance! Open up deep wells of salvation in our land, ONCE AGAIN!

REFERENCES


Wesley, J. Journal, April 17th 18th 1739 , Vol 1, 187

You went out before your people, O God Psalm 68:7

• DAY 13 MORNING PSALM 68

• DAY 13 EVENING PSALM 69-70

Skevington- Wood says ‘It was an unpredictable providence which led John Wesley to become an open- air evangelist. Field preaching was not congenial to him. Some men might have felt themselves to be in their element as they stood beneath the canopy of heaven. Not so Wesley. To him this seemed a strange way indeed. It was certainly not his own choice. He endured it only because God called him to adopt such a means of approach to the people. There is something ironical that such a man as Wesley should expose himself to the four winds like this like this. Nor did he shrink from the uncouth mob which always surrounded him with filth and foul odours and often with heckling and violence. Wesley was a dapper little don. He was finical about his personal appearance. In company he was always as neat as a tailor’s model. He was so very particular that he could not bear the slightest speck of dirt on his clerical attire. He hated noise and disturbance. He was accustomed to the academic calm of Oxford or a country rectory. That he should venture into the highways and byways and face the great unwashed is nothing short of a miracle. Only grace could have turned Wesley into a missioner to the common people. ‘

God went ahead of Wesley and chose him for this task and on the Sunday following his first experience of open –air preaching he tried it another time.’ In his journal, John Wesley writes:-

Sunday, April 8.—At seven in the morning I preached to about a thousand persons at Bristol, and afterward to about fifteen hundred on the top of Hannam Mount in Kingswood. I called to them, in the words of the evangelical prophet, “Ho! every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters;.…come, and buy wine and milk without money and without price” [Isa. 55:1]. About five thousand were in the afternoon at Rose Green (on the other side of Kingswood); among whom I stood and cried in the name of the Lord, “If any man thirst, let him come unto me and drink. He that believeth on me, as the Scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water” [John 7:38].

• We live in a desperate generation that still thirsts for life. By grace you led Wesley to preach in the highways and byways. You turned him into a missioner to the masses. Show us your strength Lord, as you have done before. GO BEFORE US and choose men and women to be your vessels ONCE AGAIN in our day to preach your Gospel to the lost in our nation, that many in their thousands would come to the waters and come and buy wine and milk without money and without price.

REFERENCES

Skevington-Wood, A. The burning heart John Wesley: Evangelist,Cliff College Publishing, 94

Wesley, J. Journal, April 8th 1739 , Vol 1, 186

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

You have delivered me from death Psalm 56:13

• DAY 11 MORNING PSALM 56-58

• DAY 11 EVENING PSALM 59-61

Just three weeks after that significant time of outpouring of the Holy Spirit at 3am on January 1st at Fetter Lane, John Wesley writes on 21 January 1739:

“We were surprised in the evening while I was expounding in the Minories. A well-dressed middle-aged woman suddenly cried out as in the agonies of death. She continued so to do, for some time with all the signs of the sharpest anguish of spirit. When she was a little recovered I desired her to call upon me the next day. She then told me that about three years before she was under strong convictions of sin and in such terrible mind that she had no comfort in anything nor any rest day or night. That she sent for the minister of her parish and told him the distress she was in: Upon which he told her husband she was stark mad, and advised him to send for a Physician immediately. A Physician was sent for her accordingly, who ordered her to be bloodied blistered and so on. But this did not heal her wounded spirit. So that she continued much as she was before. Till the last night, He whose word she was at first found, to be “sharper than any two edged sword” gave her a faint hope, that He would undertake her cause and heal the soul which had been against him.”

….and just over 10 days after that, Wesley writes on Friday March 2 1739:

“One of the most surprising instances of his power which I ever remember to have seen was on the Tuesday following; when I visited one who was above measure enraged at this new way and zealous in opposing it. Finding arguments to be of no other effect than to inflame her more and more. I broke off the dispute, and desired we might join in prayer, which she so far consented to as to kneel down. In a few minutes she fell into an extreme agony both of body and soul; and soon after cried out with the utmost earnestness, “Now I know I am forgiven for Christ’s sake.’ Many other words she uttered to the same effect, witnessing a hope full of immortality. And from that hour, God hath set her face as a flint to declare the faith which before she persecuted.”

John Wesley starts to record in his journal how the Holy Spirit began to confirm his preaching with signs following, powerfully convicting his listeners when he preached. Wesley dramatically describes how listeners were born again by the spirt of God . Individuals went through a period of crying and deep travail, ‘as in the agonies of death’ and finally came to a place of rest with assurance of forgiveness of sin.

• Lord you suddenly poured out our spirit at Pentecost. Suddenly come again with the convicting power of your Holy Spirit that is sharper than a two-edged sword. Just as a woman travails as in the agonies of death and brings to birth, bring to birth in us a new deep move of your spirit. Liberate our nation from its bondage to death and decay. DELIVER US…. and bring us into that glorious liberation of the children of God with joy and full assurance of the forgiveness of sin.

REFERENCES

Wesley, J. Journal, 172-175

Gather to me my consecrated ones Psalm 50:5

• DAY 10 MORNING PSALM 50-52

• DAY 10 EVENING PSALM 53-55

In December 1738 John Wesley heard that George Whitfield had returned from America. These two friends who had both been part of the Holy Club in Oxford were reunited on December 12. A spiritual revival had already begun in England through Whitfield, but he was Wesley’s junior and Whitfield remained a little in awe of the Oxford don. The two men rejoiced that in London there seemed (as Whitfield said) ‘to be a great pouring out of the Spirit, and many who were awakened by my preaching a year ago are now grown strong men in Christ, by the ministrations of my dear friends and fellow-labourers John and Charles Wesley.’ George Whitfield and John Wesley ‘spent many hours together, praying and singing and discussing in an upper room at the home of Mrs West and her husband Joseph, a weaver of Spitalfields, or in Whitfield’s lodgings.’ On the last day of the year, Sunday December 31st Wesley spoke to a large congregation at Whitechapel and George Whitfield despite a heavy cold preached at Spitalfields.

Wesley describes what happened when both he and Charles Wesley and George Whitfield gathered together on Monday 1 January 1739. “Mr Hall, Kinchin, Ingham, Whitfield Hutchins, and my brother Charles were present at our love-feast in Fetter-Lane with about 60 of our brethren. About three in the morning, as we were continuing instant in prayer, the power of God came mightily upon us, insomuch that many cried out for exceeding joy and many fell to the ground. As soon as we were recovered a little from that awe and amazement at the presence of his Majesty we broke out with one voice, “We praise thee; O God; we acknowledge thee to be the Lord.”

If 24 May 1738 was the day at Aldersgate when Wesley was born again by the spirit of God, then 1 January 1739 certainly seemed to be something very similar to the outpouring of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. This seems to have been a time of separation unto the Lord for those God was just about to use in the Methodist awakening that was about to break out across England and North America. John Wesley and George Whitfield had still not ventured to preach outdoors. The Lord was gathering his consecrated ones and he poured out his spirit on them in power. As the brethren dwelt in unity the Lord commanded a powerful blessing.

• Lord, gather together your consecrated ones, for another outpouring of your spirit. We long to see this country turn back to you. Pour out your spirit again as you did at Fetter Lane. We pray for the servants you are preparing. Send your fire down on those altars, Lord. Ignite them with a fresh baptism in your Holy Spirit. Fan the flames of your Gospel. By your grace let that candle never go out, let it burn brightly up and down our land ONCE AGAIN !

REFERENCES

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

Pollock, J. The preacher, Kingsway, 108-109

Wesley, J. Journal , Vol 1, 170.

You have made us a reproach to our neighbours Psalm 44:13

• DAY 9 MORNING PSALM 44-46

• DAY 9 EVENING PSALM 47-49

On the Sunday following Aldersgate, John Wesley was 'roughly attacked in a large company as an enthusiast, a seducer and a setter-forth of new doctrines.' Mrs Hutton was as much offended as the rest, and she said , 'if you were not a Christian ever since I knew you, you were a great hypocrite for you made us all believe you were one.' Skevington-Wood says that Wesley’s ministry had been impeccably sane but lamentably ineffectual prior to his embracing this doctrine of salvation. Wesley was certainly not deterred by the attitude of his friends. Dr Plumb says that Wesley’s conversion was 'followed ….by a burning determination to bring to others what he himself had felt.' It was the warmed heart that made Wesley an evangelist. The fire could only spread as first of all it was kindled. The flame was lit in Aldersgate Street. Then Dr Bett said ‘There came to him “a spiritual energy, an evangelical zeal, an unction of the holy one that he had never before possessed.'

In all his earlier disciplined life of holiness and the good works to which he set his hand writes Edwards, ‘his primary concern was on what he could do for God. But after that Aldersgate Street heartwarming he asked only what God could do for him and through him. Thus at a stroke the old sense of strain and effort had gone. There was no longer the anxious probing of heart and conscience begetting ‘the spirit of heaviness.’ All was of grace through faith, and now he found he was always a conqueror.’ it was out of this experience that the ecclesiastical of Georgia could later become the evangelist of the open road.’

Increasingly Wesley was excluded from church after church because he preached evangelical doctrines. Wesley had already experienced this exclusion even before Aldersgate. He had begun to preach justification earlier in the year. Justification by faith was the doctrine that caused such offence. On the fifth of February 1738, at St John the Evangelist, Westminster, he preached on those strong words ‘If any man be in Christ he is a new creature.’ ‘I was afterwards informed, many of the best in the parish were so offended that I was not to preach there any more.’ Nor did he. On 26th February he preached three times at St Lawrence Jewry , St Catherine Cree, St John Wapping. ‘I believe it pleased God to bless the first sermon most he wrote ‘because it gave most offence.’ Then after Aldersgate yet more churches refused Wesley to preach in their pulpits. Again and again he was excluded.

• Lord, we pray for the raising up of another wave of evangelists with the spiritual energy and the evangelical zeal and the unction of the Holy Spirit, that was on John Wesley. Although the preaching of the Gospel be a ‘sign spoken against’ and ‘a reproach to our neighbours’ give us the courage and fiery determination to keep going. Set a fire deep down in our soul. We want more of you Lord, more passion to preach the Good News of grace to a lost and dying world.

REFERENCES

Skevington-Wood, A. The burning heart John Wesley: Evangelist,Cliff College Publishing, 73 -74

Benham, D. Memoirs of James Hutton, 34

Edwards, M. A history of the Methodist church in Great Britain, Vol1, 51

Wesley, J. Vol 1, 440