Wesley Preaching on His Father's Tomb
Wesley Preaching on His Father's Tomb
Up to and until the night John Wesley’s heart was ‘warmed’ in Aldersgate Street on the 24th May, 1738 his ministry had been impeccably sane correct and proper it had also been lamentably ineffectual and boring. That night, he was saved by faith, in the finished work on the cross of Calvary. He believed in our Lord Jesus Christ alone for salvation from sin and so was born again. He became a new man in Jesus Christ. His ‘correctness’ gave way to a tender concern for the lost.
BURNING DETERMINATION
1738. It was an age of violence, sexual permissiveness, drunkenness. In general, life in the Church was corroded by secularism and unbelief, despised by the educated few, and ignored by the masses of the general public. At that time, as of this day it was time for the voice of an evangelist.
John Wesley was an evangelist. He had from the first moment of his conversion a burning determination to bring other people to our Lord Jesus Christ and to experience what he himself had known and felt. The fire was kindled in his heart and mind and that fire would surely spread across a desperately needy country. Wesley was filled, with the Power of the Holy Spirit. He now had that, which he had never before possessed, and this new heavenly dynamic expelled from him all the nagging frustration of his previous dreary and unsuccessful ministry. The old stress and strain of the anxious probing of his heart after personal faith in the Lord of Glory had been replaced with liberation of spirit.
FOR HIM AND THROUGH HIM
Now it was all of grace. He was equipped to serve not in his own strength alone. Now for John Wesley his personal concern was so different, he asked only what God could do for him and through him. It was the Lord’s work and it was all of grace through faith and he was to take to the open roads and public places preaching the Gospel, becoming the great evangelist to the entire nation.
ONE POINT OF VIEW
Wesley had only one point of view – to preach and promote the Gospel. To help increase the life of God in the souls of men. Or in the classic statement (this takes me back to Theological College) “to reform the nation, particularly the Church, and to spread Scriptural holiness over the land”. He was utterly convinced that every man or woman could be saved from hell and sin. He was driven to spread this joyful news throughout the land.
NO DEVIATION
He led men to God. He led men to man’s one and only Saviour. He did it first: and he never ceased to do so as long as he lived. This was Wesley’s sole purpose. Neither failure nor success would cause him to deviate even by a hair’s breadth from his overall aim of evangelism.
“YOU HAVE NOTHING TO DO BUT SAVE SOULS” was one of his rules for all aspiring preachers.
For more than fifty years he preached to those fast bound in sin and nature’s night he had compassion on them. They were like sheep without a shepherd.
God had given him a to do work and nothing must stand in the way of it, everything he did was for the preaching of God’s Word and the furtherance of the Gospel.
THIS WAS HIS MAGNIFICENT OBSESSION
