Pastor Glenn McDonald: The Wesleyan Revolution

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Each day this Lent we’re looking at major “turning points” in Christian history – moments or seasons in which the story of God’s people took an important and often unexpected turn.  

When he was five years old, John Wesley had a close call.

Sometime before midnight on February 9, 1709, fire broke out in the rectory where the Wesleys were sleeping. John’s parents, awakened by the cries of neighbors, were able to carry their other children to safety. But John was stranded on an upper floor, the stairs ablaze and the roof about to collapse.

Fortunately, a parishioner was able to stand on the shoulders of another man. That allowed him to reach an upstairs window where John had appeared. Years later, Wesley reflected that he had been “a brand plucked out of the fire.”

Apart from that providential rescue, the history of Christianity might have turned out quite differently. It’s not an overstatement to say that John Wesley, the smoldering brand, almost singlehandedly lit the fires of revival across England and the world.

His life, however, was anything but an easy path.

Wesley yearned to be of use to God. But as a young man he was tormented by doubts about the reality of his faith. God may have forgiven the sins of the whole world, but did that include his sins in particular?   

As a student at Oxford, John enjoyed support from his brother Charles and a young believer named George Whitefield. Together they formed what they called the Holy Club. Their detractors gave it another name. They were Methodists – Bible nerds enslaved to various “methods” designed to draw them closer to God.

But Wesley didn’t feel especially close to God.

After he and Charles accepted a missionary assignment to the American colony of Georgia, he experienced panic in the midst of a fierce storm during the Atlantic crossing. A group of Moravian settlers aboard the same boat calmly sang hymns and prayed. Why wasn’t his faith as resilient as theirs?

When the Georgia mission faltered, Wesley returned to England a defeated soul.

Then came the Bible study that changed the world. On May 24, 1738, John reluctantly agreed to attend a Moravian gathering. He later wrote:

“In the evening I went very unwilling to a society [meeting] in Aldersgate Street, where one was reading Luther’s preface to the Epistle of the Romans. 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. I felt I did trust in Christ, Christ alone, for my 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.”

Students of history see a pattern here. Augustine, Martin Luther, and John Wesley – three candidates if anyone ever decides to chisel a theological version of Mt. Rushmore – all had breakthrough experiences while reflecting on the book of Romans.

As an Anglican clergyman, John yearned for others to experience revival. But the Church of England seemed more like the “frozen chosen,” a traditional body locked into patterns that chiefly served the interests of the aristocracy. Little thought was given to the physical and spiritual needs of the British masses.

If the masses were unlikely to seek Jesus in Anglican sanctuaries, Wesley would go to them.

He took a radical step. He chose to preach outdoors. Then he took a further step that violated all decorum. He preached on weekdays to farmers and miners and factory workers. Although he was barely 5 feet 5 inches tall, he held thousands spellbound. And thousands came to faith in Christ.

Wesley was not known as an innovator, but he gratefully borrowed the ideas of others, including working through cell groups and establishing social outreach ministries.

He was strongly committed to reviving the Church of England, not replacing it. One of his legacies, nonetheless, are the Methodist churches that now span the globe.

The numbers associated with his ministry boggle the mind. Before his death in 1791 at the age of 88, Wesley had traveled a quarter of a million miles (mostly on horseback on rough trails around England) and preached more than 40,000 sermons (approximately two every day).

He was frequently jeered by skeptics and hounded by representatives of the Anglican Church, who insisted that he wasn’t “doing it right.” Wesley’s biographers have noted that his marriage was conflicted, and that his wife sometimes rode up behind his outdoor congregations and shouted, “Don’t listen to this man! He’s out of his mind!”

That’s something I remembered the day my wife told me she thought it would be neat to buy a horse.

Brother Charles, “the other Wesley,” was a talented musician who composed nearly 10,000 hymns, including Love Divine, All Loves Excelling; Come, Thou Long-Expected Jesus; Hark! the Herald Angels Sing; and Christ the Lord is Risen Today! He and songwriters like Isaac Watts helped usher in a revolution of congregational singing in the English-speaking world.

What’s the greatest hymn ever written?

There are plenty of candidates, of course, but for many people nothing holds a candle to Charles Wesley’s And Can It Be? The musical intervals are tortuous, seeming to randomly jump up and down. But the lyrics are unrivalled in their power to communicate what it means to encounter the living Christ. Here’s a sampling:

And can it be that I should gain

An int'rest in the Savior's blood?

Died He for me, who caused His pain?

For me, who Him to death pursued?

Amazing love! how can it be

That Thou, my God, should die for me?

Amazing love! how can it be

That Thou, my God, should die for me!

Long my imprisoned spirit lay

Fast bound in sin and nature's night;

Thine eye diffused a quick'ning ray,

I woke, the dungeon flamed with light;

My chains fell off, my heart was free;

I rose, went forth and followed Thee.

Amazing love! how can it be

That Thou, my God, should die for me!

Check out this contemporary version of the hymn that perhaps more than any other embodies the Wesleyan spirit: "And Can It Be" - The Village Chapel Worship Team.

John Wesley wrote in his journal at age 86: “Laziness is slowly creeping in. There is an increasing tendency to stay in bed after five-thirty in the morning.” When I’m 86, I just hope I can make out the hands on the clock at five-thirty in the morning.

All their lives, John and Charles preached this unwavering message to anyone who would listen: “God’s Free Grace Saves Sinners.”  

Their work kept the Reformation ideals alive and well in England, and gave birth to much of the Protestant culture that would come to characterize life in the United States.

Across the English Channel at the end of the 18th century, France was torn to pieces by violent revolution. Multiple historians believe it was the Wesleyan emphasis on grace, peace, and social outreach that insulated Britain from the same fate.

John Wesley declared, “Give me one hundred preachers who fear nothing but sin, and desire nothing but God, and I care not a straw whether they be clergymen or laymen; such alone will shake the gates of hell and set up the kingdom of heaven on Earth.”

That’s the kind of revolution our planet is still hoping to see.

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