♪♪[ Music playing ]♪ Welcome to Revival Radio TV. I'm your host
Gene Bailey. Last week we heard
so much about what happened in
the life of John
Wesley. You're going to be
enthralled today as we go into some
more details of what happened
with John Wesley after he got saved, where he
went, what happened. How we got to see
what happened, what God did in his life. Even though we may not
understand totally, this guy, man, he did so much
for the body of Christ as he took the gospel
into the world. You know, part of that time in that series,
that season, the 1700s, it was not
an easy life. ♪♪
Remember, he didn't
have all the luxuries ♪♪
that we
have today. ♪♪
He didn't have
automobiles ♪♪
or even the train. ♪♪
He did this all
by horseback. ♪♪
So I want you to watch
this as we get a glimpse again ♪♪
of what life
was like in the 1700s. ♪♪[ Music playing ]♪ ♪♪
[ Narrator ] ♪♪ ♪♪
As France melted down ♪♪
into the terror of a
godless revolution, ♪♪
England roiled, just on
the edge of chaos ♪♪
but was saved by the
fires of Revival ♪♪
that swept through the
land on horseback ♪♪
by men like John Wesley
and George Whitefield. ♪♪
In the struggles
between the poor ♪♪
and new merchant
class brought on ♪♪
by the blessing
of capitalism, ♪♪
the British Empire flourished ♪♪
but often at the human cost ♪♪
of abject poverty
of the peasant. ♪♪
These unwashed masses
were not welcome ♪♪
by the Anglican church or
in polite society ♪♪
so they withdrew to
the many roads ♪♪
street lined pubs. ♪♪ ♪♪
Violent crime ruled
in every village ♪♪
and in the growing cities. ♪♪
It was to this misery
and hopelessness ♪♪
that the message of
the gospel was brought ♪♪
by God's Revivalists
on horseback. ♪♪ ♪♪
These fires of
Revival literally ♪♪
changed the nation
and the world ♪♪
spreading the seeds of
liberty and freedom. ♪♪
The result of
this Revival ♪♪
caused the abolishment
of slavery ♪♪
in the British Empire where it
was said, ♪♪
"The sun never sets". With me today is our
historian here on Revival Radio
TV, Doug Bonner. Glad you are here, Doug. >> Pleased to be here. >> All right, so Doug
tell me about, here we are in the 1700s. England's a mess >> Yes, yes! >> and here the story
starts with John Wesley. >> It does and the journal
that he had. 50 years of preaching
250,000 miles on horseback, 40,000 sermons. A man who began when
the country was dark and over those years he
changed the direction not only of England
but the USA here. >> Right. >> A great change. >> So tell me what happened. He was, his early childhood. >> Yes, he was born into a
minister's family. His father was the
preacher Samuel. His mom Susanna--He was the
tenth of nineteen. >> So is this like the
Anglican church? >> Yes, that's right. The Church of England,
the state church and so he was born
into that family. His mom is very
methodical. She had to be. She gave birth to
nineteen but there was
high mortality, she had raised 10 of
those children and up until the age of about
twelve years old, she homeschooled them. >> So she had nineteen
so she lost nine. >> Yes, yes. >> I think that is
something that we gloss over a lot is just the
infant mortality during that time
was huge with the amount of people so it wasn't uncommon to
have a large family. Because you didn't know how many
were going to make it. >> That's right. Susanna
was the twenty fifth of twenty-five
children, so wow! So he was
brought up in that environment in
a place called Epworth in the
northeast of England but a dramatic
event happens that impacts the whole family. John is now about
five years old. He is living with three
of his siblings in the attic. At about two or three
AM in the morning, his older sister
is woken by a beam falling on her bed but it's on fire so
she gets up. She rouses her
parents who get all the children out. They rushed
downstairs only to find the door is locked so Samuel has to go back
up into the flames. Find the key, open
the door. They rush outside. The village is there and
they're watching this old building, it was a
thatched roof building go up in smoke so she
counts the heads and horror,
where's John? Well, John's asleep in
the attic and he wakes
up and he sees light. He's thinking well,
that's the sun rise. It's not and there was a curtain
around his bed and when the children were all
left the building, they thought he'd gone. So he is five years old. He sees the
ceiling is on fire. It's a memory that
he will never forget. >> I'm sure. It's amazing at
five years old. I mean I can only recall
just a few things... From that age but he
remembers this. Was he upset? Was he
panicked? >> He says something
interesting. I think it was the first
kind of God's incident in his life. He said a great peace
had come upon him. He walked to the window. He found a piece of
furniture and he climbed on
top of it. He looks out and his
family is outside and they're praying. Later, he found
out they were praying because they
thought he died. He was
given up for dead. Someone sees him
at the window and so the men of the
village, there's a great oil painting that
depicts this. They lean against
the front of the house. >> It's burning. >> Yes, it's burning and
the father Samuel climbs up on his shoulder. He grabs the son
and he pulls him out and the great phrase of
those days is that they describe their son as
"a brand plucked from the
flames." >> and he literally was
plucked from the flames. I mean just seconds
away from death. The whole house
was a whole loss. His mom was
touched by this because she said that
she felt he was spared for a greater purpose,
that God had spared him. >> So then what happens? >> Well in England, in
those days, if you had the finances you went
to boarding school. So at age eleven
years old, you leave home and you
only come home for the holidays so John
leaves for boarding school and it's when he begins to
assimilate rules for his life, like
praying, read the Bible but then he does well there. It's hard for him
obviously because his mom was such
an influence on him. He arrived to the great
Oxford university there and three big things, three
events happen there but there was one event, a seemingly insignificant
event that changed him. The first one was
he stops the-- he joins the Holy Club and it's a group of people who
organize themselves and they pray and study and
they are ridiculed by their fellows students
and it's first where they are called
Methodists there because you know the rules
that they had but there was an event I want to
tell you here, Gene. It's a cold winters evening. It's raining as it often
does in England... and John comes out of the
cold and the doorkeeper, the porter there
opens the door for him and he's dressed in
very light clothing. He's shivering and John
says, "Man, get some warm clothing
and a hot drink" and this man says to him,
"Sir, this is the only clothing that I
have and I can't afford a hot
drink. I have water" but it's what he
said that marked Wesley for the rest of,
you know, his life. It was the first encounter
he felt that he had and this man said, "But
I'm very grateful that God has given me the things
and the life that I have." John was amazed. Here's a guy's that been
brought up in church and in religion and
preached and this man was grateful. >> Let me stop you
right there. The thing about John
and you mentioned ealier, he grew up in an
affluent family. >> Yes, he did. >> Of course, having many
children is one thing but to be able to afford
to go to boarding school like you
said and then to Oxford. Even back then that
wasn't something that was just easily
attained. >> No, and it was very
interesting that he realized that, this man who is obviously poor
and very likely illiterate, he had
something that John Wesley did not have. And the next--And so
that changed him and it kept him up
at night. He could not sleep. It wasn't a big sermon
but it was a big event. If I don't have that,
I've got all my rules, I don't have that. The next big thing which
would affect the life of John Wesley later on was a young freshman who came to
Oxford who was just really out of his depth. He was lonely. He was being pushed around
by the older students. His name was
George Whitefield. >> Oh my goodness. >> Now he'll come into the
story a bit later on and John rescued him and
brought him under his wing and brought him into
the Holy Club. >> So he's there with
Whitefield. Was he a senior
or do you know? >> Yes, it was right at the
end of his time in Oxford, really there when
Whitefield had come in. His father died, you know, a
short time after that and that was
interesting because it was another event
that marked him. So Susanna, the mom,
brings all the children with ten children home. But the father on
his deathbed, he turned to
the other son who is called
Charles Wesley. Now, we know Charles. He wrote
6500 hymns in his lifetime. He turned to Charles
and said, "Charles, that Christianity will
revive in the kingdom. I will not see
it but you will." It was a prophecy! >> On his deathbed... >> On his deathbed and
again you know as a child, his mom felt he
was saved for a purpose but none of them had any idea
of the magnitude of what he was saved for. So tell me, you know
let's go back to Whitefield because
that's just an amazing event, you can't, knowing
history from this side. >> Right, right. >> We look back and
we're like wow! What could've been a
chance encounter was destiny for him to
meet him so what happened with
Whitefield there? Did they just
stay together? What was his
relationship with him? >> Well he took him
under his wing and you see the compassion
of Wesley here and it was a transformation
for Whitefield. He'd been very lonely
and brought into this new family of
the Holy Club. >> So does he get saved there? >> I'm not too sure exactly
when that happened because you must
remember that Wesley was not saved then either. He had all the rules. >> So here he is, he's
grown up in church. His father's a minister
but yet he's not. >> Yea, yea. >> He's not a believer yet. >> And so his father dies
and he feels lost and he's ending up at Oxford. What does he do? Well he
gets an invitation to join a
group of people to go and Christianize
the New World. Well the New World was a new
colony called Georgia. It was named after King
George and so we had John and he talked his brother
Charles into coming along and they board a ship to cross
the Atlantic Ocean and go to the new colony. John was very excited
about converting the Native Americans there
but he has a second encounter. He's on the
boat and again, it's so interesting that these
encounters are not in church. >> Right. >> And this boat I remember
as a boy seeing a replica of
a boat of that time. I was shocked by how
small it was. I mean you could almost pick it
up and put it in a pond really and these families
boarded that ship. They travel. They never know how
long it would take three weeks, even three months and according to
the storm and this is the event that marked
his life and also, he met a group of people that would have a
great influence on him. There is a group of
people from the country of Germany. They are called
Moravians and they were Christians. You had a community. These guys had prayed
for a hundred years. It's called the
hundred-year prayer meeting and they sent out
missionaries before anyone else did so these families are
on this ship. The wind is blowing. The
mainsail collapses on to the ship and
Wesley is terrified and what shocks him is that
these Moravians are not and he just can't understand
why they're not afraid and they say, "Well we have
faith in God. We believe that
we're doing what He wants" and to
the second time he realizes they have
something I don't have. >> So he's on this boat. I mean I would think and
you said it's not that big of a boat or
ship or whatever... >> And on a big ocean too. >> And on a big ocean
with winds and so the Moravians, so do they
actually lead them to Christ there
on the boat? >> Well it's only when they
arrive in Savannah that he meets up with them
and has a third encounter and so he's asked by the
leader of the group, "Do you know Christ as
your Savior?" and he says,
"Well I know that Christ is Savior
of the world." And he says, "No, do
you know him as your
Savior?" John gave an answer
which he knew was just an answer but
it's shook him to the core because
again, he realized these people have something
I don't have. He was in Georgia just for
a short time. His brother Charles was
there, only lasted six months and he left
and John, because of different circumstances,
had to leave. He was forced to flee in a year
and a half so he ends back in
England. He's a failure. He went--he said
this, "I went to convert the American Indians and
I'm the one who needed to be converted." >> That's interesting: here we
think of John Wesley as this and he was
a great hero of the Revival, a hero of the faith but yet
he has a big failure right there and he had to be,
he's destined by God. He is plucked from the flames. He has all these chance
meetings as the world would see it with
Whitefield and yet here he is, has an
encounter with God obviously makes it to
Georgia but leaves feeling like a failure. >> Absolutely. >> So what does he do? >> He back in the London area
and his brother Charles has met a
Moravian. These people just
keep showing up. >> They keep showing up. >> Absolutely and his brother
had been ill and the Moravian was helping
him but Charles said to his brother John, "I've
accepted Christ as my Savior and I have faith in Him
alone for my salvation." John was not happy and said,
"You've got to stop this." In his mind to be a
Christian, you joined the church.
You were baptized. You were confirmed. You prayed in
the church. You sang hymns in
the church so this just praying a prayer
and all of a sudden being a Christian,
it troubled him but John... >> So really what we're
saying here is his view of being a Christian
was being a good guy. >> Yea, that's right. >> Being a good man and
doing good things, good deeds, good
works-correct? >> Yes it was and he
has another event that took place
so John was you know, I mean
he was down so he said, "I will give
up preaching" and the gentleman that he met
was called Peter Bohler and Peter Bohler said, "Here is
what you do: you preach this faith until you
have this faith and when you have this faith, you will preach it." >> Say that again. >> "If you preach this faith -
of faith in Christ alone, then you will experience
that for yourself and once you've experienced it then you will preach it." >> Um. The power of your words. >> Exact, exactly so he had
an opportunity to practice this and that
shook him to the core. A few days afterwards, John
had gone to a prison to a death row inmate who
was going to be executed the next day. >> Now let's stop. Before we
get into that story. Is he had an encounter
yet with Christ? He's still believing he's saved and he's a Christian, a
good believer. >> Yes. He's a church man. >> A good church guy. >> I was born into a
Christian home therefore I am a Christian. So he had that mentality
but that was about to get shook up and it was and
is these--I mean these insignificant
but they're not but these people of no
consequence who just
changed him. So he's in this very
dark you know prison and there's an inmate who is
about to die and John, he quakes in
his boots because he preached this to this man
that he can be saved by faith. Here's the
problem with that. He hadn't been baptized. He's not
gone to church and yet John is saying
that you can be in relationship with God so
he preaches that and the shocking thing is that
this man has a tremendous experience
and John sees that. >> He's not even saved
but he wins somebody. >> No, it's just amazing! So the next day that
man is executed but the next day, John
has the encounter that he's been searching
for all his life. >> Okay so I mean can you
imagine being someone that grew up in church,
in your well-to-do family and you're able to live a life that's comfortable--wouldn't
you say-- saved from the fire, has all
these encounters, then you win somebody. He's an
adult and you win somebody to the Lord and he's not
even a real believer. This must have had an
amazing effect on him. >> And it all came to fruition
the next day at a place in the
city of London called Aldersgate and he
went to a meeting. I have to say it was
reluctantly and there was a man-- He was reading the
writings of Martin Luther, the great
reformer, and a commentary on the
book of Romans and something dramatic took
place inside of him. He said these
very famous words. He said, "My heart was
strangely warmed and I took Christ as
my Savior." >> Right. >> And all of a sudden what
you have to see is this is that he'd been
a religious man but realized he was not
a child of God and he was transformed by
this experience. He had the experience that
the death row inmate had but it was for him. He realized he had to
have that personally himself even
though he's born into a Christian home,
he had to be, to become a follower of
Christ himself. >> Well I want to get into
the next part about how did he go from being
just the story of being saved,
finally getting saved as an adult, to being
father of Christianity in this nation but that's
for another day. Let's stop right there now
and I want talk to you watching right now. You know perhaps
you grew up and in a situation
where you had everything handed to you
and you thought "Well I'm a good person I'm
going to heaven". And I think, Doug, we
all have to deal with this question at some
point in our lives whether you're born in a
Christian home or are not you have to
come to the conclusion, "Do I have a relationship with
Jesus Christ, do I believe it?" At some point in your
life listen to me, ♪♪
at some point in your life, ♪♪
you're going to have to
answer the question, ♪♪
"Do I believe the
Bible, or do I not?" ♪♪
It's really that simple. ♪♪
"Am I going to
live by this ♪♪
or am I going to
let it pass?" ♪♪
Listen, those of you
that are watching, ♪♪
perhaps you know someone in fact ♪♪
perhaps it's you! ♪♪
That you're living a life that
you think is one way ♪♪
but truth is you've never
had an experience ♪♪
with Jesus Christ. ♪♪
You've never had Him come in ♪♪
and have that experience ♪♪
like John Wesley did. ♪♪
The warmth that he describes ♪♪
that comes
in and knows that ♪♪
wow, I don't have just
religion anymore, ♪♪
I have a relationship with the
very Creator of the world ♪♪
of the universe who sent His
son Jesus to die. ♪♪
Listen if you haven't you
haven't made Jesus ♪♪
the Lord of your life and you're
watching this program-- ♪♪
Maybe someone gave you the DVD, ♪♪
maybe someone showed you or
told you to watch this. ♪♪
I want to pray with you and I
want to urge you right now. ♪♪
These are the days
we are coming. ♪♪
It doesn't take a degree in
theology to understand ♪♪
we're coming to the end of days ♪♪
and we're in a place where ♪♪
the world is a mess just
like it was in the 1700s. ♪♪
The world is a
mess right now. ♪♪
It's time for
you to make sure ♪♪
you know who your Maker
is and you know ♪♪
you have a relationship
with Jesus Christ. ♪♪
So I want to urge you. ♪♪
Make Him the Lord
of your life today. ♪♪
And If you have
been in church, ♪♪
it's time to make that
commitment yourself. ♪♪
Make Him the Lord
of your life. ♪♪
It's not about
doing good things. ♪♪
It's no longer
just being able to ♪♪
look good and be good
and be honest. ♪♪
All of those
things are great qualities ♪♪
but they're not going
to get you to heaven. ♪♪
God has a call
on each of you. ♪♪
He has a desire for you to be a
champion of the faith, ♪♪
a hero of the faith, ♪♪
a hero of Revival but
the Revival starts with you. ♪♪
In order to be the one
for someone else, ♪♪
you have to be the one for
yourself sometimes ♪♪
and I'm being the one right now, ♪♪
I want to lead you in
that sinner's prayer. ♪♪
So if you're ready to make
that commitment right now ♪♪
to make Jesus the
Lord of your life. ♪♪
Let's pray together. ♪♪
Just repeat after me, "Jesus,
I come to you a sinner. ♪♪
I know that I've
made mistakes ♪♪
but Lord I recognize
you as God ♪♪
and I commit my
life to you. ♪♪
I ask you to forgive
me of my sins ♪♪
that you went to the cross
and paid the price for ♪♪
and I commit myself to you ♪♪
in Jesus name I
receive it by faith. ♪♪
Amen and amen. ♪♪
Listen! Why did I add
that "receive it by faith?" ♪♪
Because you don't
have to feel something ♪♪
to grab a hold
of salvation. ♪♪
You don't necessarily
have to have the warmth ♪♪
that John Wesley felt
or be laid out on the floor. ♪♪
You have to have the
encounter with God ♪♪
and you do it by
coming to the cross ♪♪
through faith in saying,
"I believe this story ♪♪
that what I've heard that Jesus
is the Savior of the world ♪♪
and I want to give Him my life
and I want to be that person." ♪♪
And you know when we
talk about being the one, ♪♪
the whole purpose of this
program is simple, Doug. ♪♪
We want to encourage every
person out there that's watching ♪♪
whether you're a new believer
and you just got saved today ♪♪
or you've been a father in
the faith so to speak ♪♪
in your own world
in your own place ♪♪
that you have had a huge
following and you go to
church every-- ♪♪
It's time to get
out of your own little world ♪♪
and become the one
that takes the gospel. ♪♪
What if people had not
shared the gospel. ♪♪
You know we talked
recently about Russia. ♪♪
What if Voronaev hadn't
gone to Russia? ♪♪
What if he hadn't gone
and taken the gospel there. ♪♪
What if you don't know who you
will influence. ♪♪
I heard it said once
from a preacher long ago, ♪♪
It's not necessarily
theologically accurate ♪♪
but you are someone's
greatest version ♪♪
of who Christ is. ♪♪
Someone--the only thing that
they see about Christ ♪♪
is who you are. ♪♪
So it's important for us
to take what we know as ♪♪
this wonderful
experience of who Jesus is ♪♪
and making Him the
Lord of your life. It's time for
you to take that. I want to encourage you,
get out of your four walls. Don't just stay
in the church. John Wesley grew up
believing everything needed to stay within
the walls of the church and understanding it took a
shaking of himself to get out and understand that it's
important that we take
this gospel out. That's the Great
Commission to go, to go and take the
gospel to everyone. Listen I want to
encourage you to do that. To be the one,
be the one. Share this
television program. Have someone that maybe you
don't know is a believer, have them watch this because
this is historical. This is history.
These are facts. This isn't just a Bible
story that everybody likes to read. Repeat as if that
wasn't enough. It is because it's
the truth so take this to
your world. Expand your influence
and that may make you ♪♪
feel a little awkward
but you can do it ♪♪
because Jesus is Lord and ♪♪
He is there to take you
in every aspect. ♪♪
Doug, thank you. We are going
to pick this up next week ♪♪
but I want you
to remember ♪♪ that not only
Jesus is Lord but
I want you ♪♪ to take this gospel to
your world and be the one. ♪♪
I'll see you next time. ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪
