Bible Study. 19th May 2020
Today's Bible Study has been prepared for us by Rev Peter Perowne. On your behalf may I thank Peter for leading our thoughts in this way.
Blessings
Colin
Canvey Methodist Church Bible Study. 19.5.20
Let us begin with a prayer:
Father you call us into your presence,
To be here present with you
And in some way present with one another;
You call us into conversation,
To converse with you
And also, in virtual mode, with one another.
You call us into turning,
To turn afresh towards you
And to turn as we can to one another.
Presence, conversation, turning.
Making the unknown into the known.
Making the unfamiliar into the familiar.
So we look for revelation.
We would know healing.
We would enter into your peace.
(adapted from the URC Prayer Handbook)
On Thursday and Sunday we shall celebrate the Ascension of our Lord but Sunday is also Aldersgate Sunday when we remember the conversion of John Wesley so I thought today we could take the opportunity of remembering what led up to and followed his conversion on May 24th, 1738.
1. JOHN WESLEY’S EARLY LIFE
John’s father was Rector of Epworth, Lincolnshire. He was not popular. 19 children were born to him and Susanna, his wife. Only ten of them lived. When John was five his sister Hettie was woken in the night by a fire falling on her bed. She gave the alarm and they all got out – or so her parents thought until they saw a face at an upstairs window. John was trapped; the fire had gone too far; his father was forced to stop all attempts to rescue. The rumour was that it had been started by some who had been trying to get Samuel , their Rector out for years. He gave up all hope of saving John but just then a group of villagers came, formed a tower one atop another, reached the window and rescued John. You can imagine how thankful they all were! After that his mother called him A BRAND PLUCKED FROM THE BURNING and she vowed to take special care of him as she believed God had saved him for a purpose.
The quotation is from the prophet Amos 4; 11
“ I overthrew some of you as I overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah.
You were like a burning stick (in our NIV version) snatched from the fire,
Yet you have not returned to me, declares the Lord.”
It is worth reading the whole chapter and then ask yourself “Was that an appropriate use of Scripture? Would we use it like that today? Who and what was Amos really talking about?” How did that message of judgement influence Wesley’s early life? Remember how he struggled to make himself acceptable to God?
2. JOHN WESLEY FROM OXFORD TO AMERICA
At 17 John went up to Oxford. In time he realised he had to take life more seriously and sought ordination. When his father became ill. John went home to serve as his curate. Before that his brother Charles had joined him at Oxford and they formed part of a small group who met regularly to study the Bible and to pray and it went even further; rather than spend money in the taverns they pooled their money and paid a teacher to teach poor children. They visited the prisons. They gave money and blankets to the poor. All this attracted ridicule from other students to whom this was a thing unheard of. They were called names; Bible moths. Holy club, Methodists. As we all know. And John must have wondered, “Was this that God wanted him for? To lead a revival of religion at the university? Would God be satisfied with that?”
In 1735 their father died. They had to think about the future. General Oglethorpe, Governor of the new American colony of Georgia, was looking for recruits. Would Charles go with him as secretary and John as missionary priest to the colonists and the native Indians? Was that to be his calling to satisfy God? They went but it was a rough and dangerous voyage. Death had stared them in the face. But they survived (a brand plucked from the burning again?) Their time was not a success. John’s high churchmanship did not suit the settlers and he found no sympathy with the Indians. In two years they were both on the voyage home. He reflected on his failure afterwards that he had learnt one important thing. On the voyage out a group of Moravians had been fellow passengers and in the storms, while he had been terrified, they had been at prayer, singing praises to God without fear. And he found no peace in his work there. What had he learnt? “That I who went to America to convert others, was never myself converted to God” We must thank God that he learnt also from the Moravians the remedy for his deep depression as he arrived home. Peter Bohler had become a Moravian friend from whom he sought advice. Should he give up preaching while he was in this depressed state? He knew by then that what he lacked was the sort of faith that could really save him. Peter Bohler said “Preach faith till you have it and then you will preach it because you have it” Wesley took it as sound advice throughout all his searching and questioning. Then the pivotal moment of God’s saving work.
3. ALDERSGATE STREET
May 24th, 1738 was a day of Biblical references. When Wesley was at his lowest he woke to find the words “Thou art not far from the Kingdom of God”. Later in the day he went to Evensong in St. Paul’s cathedral and heard the anthem “Out of the depths have I cried unto Thee, O Lord”. It spoke to his condition. Later his journal tells how he went, very unwillingly to a little meeting in Aldersgate Street where someone was expounding Luther’s preface to Paul’s letter to the Romans. In that moment God answered his prayers: “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.” A warmed heart, just like those disciples when they met Jesus on the road to Emmaus! What a wealth of Bible references showing us how well that family knew their Scriptures! John then discovered another wonder: his brother Charles, so ill several days before, had also found his peace with God and fully recovered only three days before. He had written a hymn in celebration:
It fitted them both as they sang:
Where shall my wondering soul begin?
How shall I all to heaven aspire?
A slave redeemed from death and sin,
A brand plucked from eternal fire,
How shall I equal triumphs raise?
Or sing my great deliverer’s praise?
You can find the rest of the hymn at 454 in Singing the Faith or any of the older Methodist hymn books.
Text as link below
https://hymnary.org/text/where_shall_my_wondering_soul_begin
Music as link below.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=H3w__w6XHSg
So how can we describe what happened to John Wesley that night? Was it his conversion – at last!? Certainly it was not an end to all his doubts and temptations for there were many both straight afterwards and in the months and years ahead, but he now found victory over them. After the event he knew he needed time and space and help to think it through. As Jesus needed his wilderness after his baptism, and Paul needed his Arabia after his conversion on the Damascus road, so John Wesley needed to get away to Germany, to the Moravians who had been his good mentors all along.
They were just what he needed. He returned feeling confident that he was no longer seeking to please God by his good works; he was accepted as he was for his faith alone. He was confident in that assurance he had felt on May 24th that his sins were forgiven. His burden had been taken away. Moreover he knew that what he had experienced was meant for all, so all needed to hear that wonderful news.
4 AFTER ALDERSGATE
Wesley now preached a new and powerful message. He had not lost his high churchmanship but, even more important, he had not lost his love and concern for the poor and their salvation. The churches of his day had no concern for the poor and they found his message not to their taste so church doors began to close to Mr. Wesley. So he used rooms to preach in. Then an old friend from Oxford Holy Club days invited him to Bristol. George Whitfield had also been to America where he had proved a great success. Now he was preaching not only in churches but also in open fields to the poor – crowds of them. But Wesley’s churchmanship made him very critical of Whitfield; the church was the proper place for preaching. However, Whitfield had been invited back to America; was this ministry to the poor to cease? Would that be God’s will? Whitfield invited Wesley to preach. He cringed; this was not the place for holy things! Then (he wrote) “I submitted to become more vile and proclaim in the highways the glad tidings of salvation” So he stumbled upon God’s purpose for him at last and became obedient to it. He described himself as having once the faith of a servant(serving God out of reverential fear) but now the faith of a son (serving God out of gratitude and love). So here is the “brand plucked from eternal fire” transformed at last. Later in his life Wesley said he believed the Methodist people had been raised up by God to spread Scriptural holiness throughout the land. He obviously remembered his Holy Club days and how holiness included caring for the poor in practical ways as well as the warmed heart. I think he would approve of this prayer that I borrow again from the URC Prayer Handbook:
“
God of the orphaned, bereaved and the homeless,
When we feel lost,
Remind us of those who have lost everything;
When we know pain,
Take us to those who are hurting unbearably;
And when we struggle to stay connected,
Sit us alongside those who have nowhere to call home.
We do well to remember
That you accompanied those
Who walked a lonely path,
Who travelled the wilderness,
Who had nowhere to lay their head.
And still you do today.
If we want to be nearer to you,
We need to move
To where you already are
And have been all along, waiting for us
Getting alongside those who are in need,
Joining you in places where we can make a difference.
God of the orphaned, bereaved and homeless,
Hear us, welcome us, use us.
We don’t often think of our founder in METHODISM, our faith of course is not in him but in One above. Yet in Wesley’s life we can learn so much about our Lord and about ourselves too. What is there for us, for you, today?
Amen.
I hope this has been helpful. Sending Best Wishes to all.
Peter.