Angels of Light: False Prophets and Deceiving Spirits at Work Today in the Church & World by Eddie Hyatt & Susan Hyatt

Author:Eddie Hyatt & Susan Hyatt [Hyatt, Eddie & Hyatt, Susan]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Hyatt Press
Published: 2018-08-12T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 8

John Wesley Shows

How to Test the Spirits

“Try all things by the written word and let all bow down before it.”

John Wesley

The eighteenth-century Methodist Revival emerged as one of the most powerful and enduring revivals of Christian history. John Wesley’s emphasis on Biblical truth coupled with his openness to the dynamic working of the Holy Spirit gave the revival a unique stability, resulting in much good fruit, not only in the first generation, but in succeeding generations. This is why the noted historian, Dr. Vinson Synan, has called John Wesley “The Father,” not only of Methodism, but of all the Holiness-Pentecostal bodies that have emerged from it.

The Bible Was Their Guide

The revival began with John Wesley, his brother Charles, and several of their colleagues at Oxford University meeting together each evening from 6 to 9 p.m. to study the Greek New Testament. They were members of the Church of England (Anglican) but were dubbed Methodists for their methodical approach to Biblical study and other Christian disciplines.

They were people of the Word who made the Bible their ultimate guide for life and faith. In 1729 John Wesley, who taught Greek and logical thinking at Oxford, wrote,

I began to not only read, but to study the Bible as the one and the only standard of truth, and the only model of pure religion.[14]

George Whitefield, an early colleague of the Wesleys, and revivalist extraordinaire, also exhibited a great hunger for Biblical truth. Shortly after meeting Charles Wesley at Oxford, he had a dramatic born-again experience and was consumed with a hunger for God’s word. He wrote,

My mind now being more open and enlarged, I began to read the Holy Scriptures upon my knees, laying aside all other books and praying over, if possible, every line and word.[15]

Revival Birthed in Prayer

John Wesley and the early Methodists did not seek an experience, or an event, called “revival.” They sought a restoration of what they called “primitive Christianity.” In this quest to discover the Christianity of the New Testament, they not only diligently studied the Scriptures, they also prayed. In fact, the Methodist revival can, perhaps, be traced to an all-night prayer meeting that began on December 31, 1738.

About seventy Methodists, many of them Anglican ministers, as were John and Charles, gathered on New Year’s Eve for a night of prayer. It proved to be a very eventful time. The next day, January 1, 1739, John Wesley recorded in his Journal:

At about three in the morning, as we were continuing instant in prayer, the power of God came mightily upon us insomuch that many cried out for exceeding joy, and many fell to the ground. We broke out with one voice, “We praise thee, O God, we acknowledge thee to be the Lord.”[16]

Shut out of the Anglican churches with whom they were ordained, Wesley, Whitefield and others began to preach on the streets and in open fields. Thousands came out to hear them preach, and British society was transformed as God’s Spirit was poured out through them.

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