DAY 29

MORNING

PSALMS 139–140

Psalm 139:9 “... if I settle on the far side of the sea.”

Another Wave to the Ends of the Earth

The Methodist Conference commissioned two lay preachers in 1769 to go to the American colonies. In a sense they would be doing nothing new, as they would be working like itinerant Methodist preachers in Britain. In 1789 another itinerant from the Midlands, Francis Asbury, volunteered and set sail for Philadelphia to join them.193

Asbury is credited for recruiting and organising a band of selfless and radical riders of whom the world was not worthy, that would change America’s future forever. This group of rough yet broken men would travel the frontiers of America for decades, taking the Gospel to the most remote places in America. In a time of American history where it was easier to stay in one place and live in the comfort of the few cities that existed, these men refused comfort and were driven by the ancient dream of Eden to see man and God live in intimate fellowship. They rode on. Over half of them died before reaching the age of 33 and their annual pay, if any, was around 50 dollars. “No family was too poor, no house too filthy, no town too remote, and no people too ignorant to receive the good news that life could be better.”

They did not do it for the love of money, fame nor an affinity towards human comfort. They were marked by the same determination as Asbury that every home in America 
would hear and believe the Gospel. When Asbury arrived in America there were a few hundred Methodist followers and a few dozen preachers, but by the time he died there were over 210,000 followers and over 4,000 preachers. America would never be the same because of these wild-eyed revivalists. Wesley was encouraged that the Gospel
 was spreading in America. Their vision was his vision that if Christians were to live out the Gospel and to live pure and holy lives the message of the Gospel would be irresistible 
to those that had not heard the Good News. Wesley wrote to Asbury: “ (The) God of love will then prepare his messengers and make a way into the polar regions, into the deep recesses of America and into the interior parts of Africa; yea into the heart of China and Japan, with countries adjoining to them. And ‘their sound’ will then ‘go forth into all lands, and their voice to the ends of the earth.’”194
 Asbury and the early American circuit riders are the inspiration for a new youth movement of radical evangelists in the USA at present.195

Prayer

Lord, raise up a new breed of wild-eyed revivalists in our day. We thank you for Francis Asbury and the early Methodist circuit riders and we say, “Lord, do it again”! Unleash another wave of passionate young evangelists with neither love of money nor love of comfort but a passionate desire to take the Gospel to the ends of the earth. Do it again in our day we pray, Lord!

193 Pollock, J. Wesley: The preacher, 250–251.

194 Wesley. J. Letter to Asbury, 1788.


195 www.thecircuitrider.com/about-us/history

DAY 29

EVENING

PSALMS 141–143

Psalm 141:4 “Let not my heart be drawn to what is evil.”

Deliverance in Kingswood

Wesley wrote in his Journal:196

Tuesday 23 October, 1739

Returning in the evening I was exceedingly pressed to go back to a young woman in Kingswood ... I went. She was 19 or 20 years old, but it seems could not write or read. I found her on the bed, two or three persons holding her. It was a terrible sight. Anguish, horror and despair above all descriptions, appeared in her pale face. The thousand distortions of her whole body showed how the dogs of hell were gnawing her heart. The shrieks intermixed were scarce to be endured. But her stony eyes could not weep. She screamed out as soon as words could find their way, “I am damned, damned lost for ever. Six days ago you might have helped me but it is past. I am the devil’s now.” We interrupted her by calling upon God. On which she sunk down ... and another young woman began to roar as loud as she had done. My brother came in, it being about 9 o’clock. We continued in prayer until past eleven, when God in a moment spoke peace into the soul, first of the first tormented and then the other and they both joined in singing praise to him who had “stilled the enemy and the avenger.”

Saturday 27 October 1739

I was sent for to Kingswood again to one of those who been so ill before. A violent rain began ... when I was come I was quite cold and dead, and fitter for sleep than prayer. She burst out into a horrid laughter, and said “No power, no power, no faith, no faith. She is mine, her soul is mine, and I have and will not let her go.” We begged God to increase our faith. Meanwhile her pangs increased more and more; so that
one would have imagined, by the violence of the throes her body must have been shattered to pieces. We betook ourselves to prayer again, and ceased not again, till she began about 6 o’clock with a clear voice, and a cheerful look, [to sing] “Praise God from whom all blessings flow.”

Prayer

Lord, we pray for those in our country who are trapped in sin, who do not know that there is a free gift of salvation that does not need to be earned, that has been paid for at a price. You are our Deliverer, who rescues us from all our troubles who saves us from all despair. Rescue, save us and deliver us from evil we pray.

196 Wesley. J. Works of John Wesley, Journal, Volume 1, 236, 237.