John Wesley

Spirit-filled Methodist

By Dennis Pollock

One of the giants of Christianity, John Wesley stood just under five feet six inches tall. His
methodical ways, both before and after his conversion to Christ (and his insistence that his
followers practice a similar discipline in their own lives) led his movement to become known as the
Methodists. Rising at four in the morning nearly all of his adult life, he believed time was precious,
and not a minute of it to be wasted by frivolous recreation or too much sleep (which, he declared,
"parboils the flesh").

John was born in 1703 in Epworth, England to a mother and father both deeply committed to the
Lord and serious about their faith. His father was a pastor whose intellect exceeded his practicality,
and whose lack of financial discipline brought his family deeper and deeper into debt with the
passing years. His church never seemed to warm to him, and despite his sincere devotion to his
calling, his ministry was never a great success. John's mother, like her husband, had a brilliant mind,
but she seemed to possess administrative gifts and common sense that her husband lacked. Since the
family finances and affairs of the church were beyond her reach, she settled on making sure each of
their eleven children had their willful tendencies properly subdued from an early age and were
thoroughly taught the ways and word of God.

John took to this religious atmosphere very naturally, and his serious and analytical mind was
continually absorbed in the things of God. When he and his brothers reached the proper age, his
father used badly needed family funds to make sure his boys received the best education available,
which, in England, meant Oxford. John, studious by nature, loved the university atmosphere, and
stayed on as a teacher and personal tutor after graduation. While at Oxford he began meeting with
other like-minded young men who were serious about spiritual things. Being the natural leader he
was, John quickly organized and took control of the group, which came to be known as the "holy
club." (Their group was mockingly referred to as the "Bible bigots" by many of the students who
were perplexed and amazed at these religious fanatics.) Wesley and his friends took communion
every week, constantly studied the Bible, visited prisoners, and audited their spiritual lives
continually, guarding themselves especially against the sin of wasting time. John even took to
assigning a numerical score of his spiritual state at various times throughout the day.

At this point none of these men knew the first thing about salvation by grace through faith in Jesus.
They followed John's lead in pursuing holiness with a noble desperation, but had no clue as to the
nature of the new birth. Having been ordained a priest in the Anglican church, John finally decided
to travel to America and try his hand at ministry in the large British colony. He had been asked to
serve as minister to a parish in Savannah, Georgia. He hoped this might provide him the opportunity
to convert some of the American Indians, and also thought the quieter, more primitive conditions in
America would provide an excellent opportunity for him to engage in his quest for holiness. As he
sailed he made sure not a minute of his time on the ship was wasted. His daily regimen included
two hours each day in private prayer, two hours leading public prayers, two hours of Bible study, as
well as meeting with his two companions to discuss their spiritual state at length, and spending three
hours each day learning German from the German Moravian Christians on the ship.
 Failure

Wesley's hopes for a glorious ministry in America were to be disappointed. His ministry there was a
complete disaster. His harsh, legalistic ways did not sit well with the independent Americans.
Wesley had become an expert in the letter of the law but had no experiential knowledge of the
blessed Spirit who had given that law. Discipline and morality he knew well; grace, mercy, and the
new birth were as yet foreign to him. His naturally forceful personality, untempered by the Spirit's
love and gentleness, impressed some but made him many enemies. One man told him: "I like
nothing you do… and all the people are of my mind, for we won't hear ourselves abused… All the
quarrels that have been here since you came have been (because) of you. Indeed, there is neither
man nor woman in the town who abides a word you say…"

While in Georgia, John became romantically involved with a young lady named Sophy Hopkey.
She visited him often to learn the Bible from him, and before long romance blossomed. But John
was torn, having believed that the noblest Christian state was to be single, wholly devoted to the
Lord. Despite his theology of singleness, Wesley was an instinctive romantic who found women
fascinating. As the relationship grew he made hints of marriage and then backed off. He was partly
ashamed of this "unholy desire" to marry and have a normal life, and yet he could not bring himself
to put an end to the relationship. Finally Sophy, probably weary of his indecision, settled the matter
by marrying another man who had no qualms, spiritual or otherwise, about tying the knot.

After Sophy's church attendance slipped, Wesley responded by officially denying her communion,
which infuriated her, her new husband, and most of the parishioners. Emotions were at the boiling
point, and this led to Wesley being arrested for defamation of character. Several members of the
church added various other charges, seeing an opportunity to pay back the stern minister for his
criticisms and rebukes. Wesley was found guilty, and then appealed the charges. Realizing he was
in over his head, the young preacher sneaked out of town under the cover of darkness, made his way
through swamps and forest to Charlestown, boarded a ship and headed back to England. He would
never see America again.

In the providence of God our failures often become instrumental in paving the way for our
successes, and so it was in the life of John Wesley. His ego had been crushed and his quest for
holiness through his own efforts had run into a dead end. He wrote, "I went to America to convert
the Indians, but who will convert me?" Wesley was finally ready for the grace of Jesus Christ. The
German Moravian believers he met on the ship had made a powerful impression on him. During
some of the violent storms at sea Wesley had been terrified, but these godly folks had sung hymns
and praised God while the storms raged. Amazed and ashamed, Wesley later asked one, "Were you
not afraid?" He answered, "I thank God, no." "But were not your women and children afraid?" The
answer was given, "Our women and children are not afraid to die." They clearly had something
Wesley did not, which was driven home all the more when they asked him if he had "the witness of
the Spirit" that he was a child of God. Though rarely at a loss for words, in this case he had no
answer.

"Strangely Warmed"

Back in England John Wesley began to move closer to the Moravian theology of a new birth as an
instantaneous experience brought about by faith in Jesus, which was attested by a definite witness
of the Holy Spirit to one's soul. The only problem was he had no such witness. He continued his
attempts to minister to others, and even seems to have led others to Christ, encouraging them to
trust in Jesus for salvation while not feeling he had that faith himself. Finally, around four months
after returning from America, John experienced "the witness of the Spirit" of which the Moravians
had spoken. At a Moravian Bible study a man was reading Martin Luther's Preface to Romans. John
writes:

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 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.

On New Year's Eve John and around 60 other believers were praying, when at about 3:00 a.m. they
experienced the power of the Holy Spirit as never before. John writes:

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."

John first got a taste of mass evangelism thanks to his good friend and fellow Holy Club member,
George Whitefield, who had preceded Wesley in experiencing the new birth. Whitefield had begun
preaching in the fields to coal miners and was drawing immense crowds at Bristol. He invited
Wesley to come and take over the work there as he traveled on to other areas. Proper Anglican
minister that he was, Wesley said he would have thought it "almost a sin" for someone to get saved
anywhere other than in church, but somehow he couldn't bring himself to say no.

As he preached to the thousands of poor and uneducated miners and their families, Wesley was
soon addicted. The power of the Spirit was readily evident and the fruits of transformed lives
abounded. And while Wesley wasn't quite the orator that Whitefield was, he was a master at
organization. He quickly saw the need of establishing meetings for the new converts and providing
them with follow up. The new believers met together, sang hymns, studied the Scriptures, and held
each other accountable to live moral and upright lives. Wesley had no intention of starting a new
church or denomination. To the end of his days he was loyal to the Church of England, but he was
smart enough to know these new converts would starve to death spiritually if they merely attended
the formal Anglican churches, sitting under the ministries of men who for most part were not born
again.

John Wesley went on to become perhaps the most influential church leader of his generation. His
preaching was powerful and moving. Though he was highly intelligent his forceful arguments for
the necessity of the new birth were simple enough for the most uneducated and ignorant to
understand. Tens of thousands came to Christ through his ministry, and far more through the lay
preachers he raised up to minister to the ever growing "Methodist" societies, which began to
multiply throughout England like wildfire. Though he never returned to America, some of his
preachers did, and the Methodist movement shook America and grew to become the largest
Christian denomination in the U. S. within a generation.
Though Wesley was not Pentecostal in the classical sense of speaking with tongues, he was clearly
a Spirit-filled man, whose life and ministry were filled with demonstrations of the Spirit and power.
Sinners frequently fell to the ground as he preached, sometimes trembling violently. Often by the
time they regained their composure they were more than willing to give their lives to Christ. In his
journal he recorded the following occurrence in one of his meetings: "Some sunk down, and there
remained no strength in them; others exceedingly trembled and quaked; some were torn with a kind
of convulsive motion in every part of their bodies, and that so violently that four or five persons
could not hold one of them…"

As with all of God's servants (save His Son) John Wesley had his flaws. He could be incredibly
blunt and insensitive, writing to his sister upon the death of her children, that this was God's
goodness to her, as she could now serve the Lord without the loss of the time she had spent in
caring for them. He sometimes made important decisions based on the strange practice of drawing
one out of several slips of paper, which had various choices printed on them. His famously
miserable marriage was no doubt due largely to the unstable woman he had rashly married. But his
philosophy of marriage didn't help, as he determined not to travel one mile less or preach one less
sermon than he would in a single state. Sending his wife letters with lists of her faults probably
didn't help much either. And Wesley's continual spiritual introspection stayed with him all his life,
resulting in times where he wondered if he were truly born again when his feelings didn't reach the
level he thought they should.

Despite his flaws, Wesley was a mighty instrument in the hands of God. He preached the new birth
through a faith experience with Jesus Christ, and England erupted with the fires of revival. The
short little man with the huge devotion to Christ touched his generation as few have and left a
legacy that only eternity will fully reveal.