The good man Bray, in whose house Charles Wesley lodged, read the Bible to him, and talked to him as best he could, and Charles listened gladly, now that he had lost Peter. “God,” he said, “sent Mr. Bray, a poor, ignorant mechanic, who knows nothing but Christ, but by knowing Him, knows and discerns all things.”
A woman of the family also talked to Charles, and told him she would be glad to die at any moment. “For,” she said, “all my sins are blotted out. Christ has saved me by His death, He has washed me by His blood.”
Charles longed to feel this too. As he lay in his bed he prayed, saying: “O, Jesus, Thou hast said, I will come to you. Thou hast said, I will send the Comforter unto you.” And so he prayed till he was dropping off to sleep, when he was roused by hearing some words which came to him as a message from God. They were a few simple words spoken by the good woman who had talked to him before, and who nursed him in his illness. Charles received Christ into his heart, and after praying and talking with Bray, he felt a joy and rest in his soul he had never before known. He knew the love of Christ that passes knowledge.
But John could not yet rejoice. Though he was glad for Charles, he felt all the more unhappy about himself. It was on Sunday that he heard of Charles’ happiness. He says in his journal: “On Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday I had continual sorrow and heaviness in my heart.” And he goes on to describe how he now saw more and more that he was altogether vile and sinful, “deserving nothing but wrath.” He looked back over his past life, and felt how, that one by one, everything be had trusted to for salvation had been like a broken reed. He remembered he had been taught when a child, at Epworth, that he “could only be saved by keeping all the commandments of God.” Then he remembered that though he believed this to be true, he had lived when at school in constant neglect of his duties, and in the practice—the constant practice—of known sins. And he remembered how he then thought that in spite of it all he might hope to be saved. 1st By not being so bad as other people. 2nd By having a respect for religion. 3rd By reading the Bible, going to church, and saying his prayers.
Then he thought of his Oxford life, how at first he lived there contentedly in known sin, and without any love or fear of God, and yet thought from time to time that perhaps he might be saved by short fits of repentance every now and then. Then he remembered how he had “turned over a new leaf,” as people say, from reading “Thomas à Kempis” and Mr. Law’s books; how he had then tried hard to be holy; had caused himself to be laughed at and hated; had worked like a slave in visiting the poor; had fasted till he was ill; and then after all had felt no happier, and just as much afraid of death and judgment as before. He remembered, too, his voyage to America, and how he had refused to believe what the Moravians told him about faith and Christ. And then his sad, fruitless labors at Savannah; and his terrible discovery on the way home, that he had never really been a Christian. And then he thought of the light that had come into his mind through his talks with Peter, and he felt now assured that Peter had been telling him the truth about himself when he convinced him that he had not really believed in Jesus. And yet, though he longed to believe, he felt that his prayers for faith were dull and cold; he could not arouse himself, nor make himself really care to have it.
Poor John! he was learning that it is not the sinner who makes himself alive; and that it is not to living souls, but to dead ones that Christ speaks the word that calls them out of the grave of sin and death. “The dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God, and they that hear shall live.” It is not that the Son of God wants to hear the voice of the dead calling to Him for help; He speaks the word, and they come forth alive for evermore. It was on Wednesday evening, May 24th, that the word of life was spoken by the voice of Christ to John Wesley. He had gone “very unwillingly” to a meeting in Alders-gate Street, where someone read aloud Luther’s preface to the Epistle to the Romans. Wesley had not been fond of Luther, he had spoken of him before as “a wrongheaded German, who made too much of faith, instead of teaching that we are saved by faith and works together.” But now, as he listened to the one reading aloud, Wesley says, “while he was describing the change that God works in the heart through faith in Christ, I felt my heart strangely warmed. I felt I did trust in Christ, in 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. I then testified openly to all there what I now felt first in my heart.”
After this blessed evening John Wesley was indeed a new creature in Christ Jesus. At first Satan tried to rob him of his peace, but he found that Jesus was with him, and when he looked into the Word of God, he says he scarce remembers ever to have opened it but upon some great and precious promise. He now at last had the peace he had so often longed for, and he could praise God and rejoice in Christ, knowing for the first time what joy really means. But at times he felt more sorrow than joy, in the thought of his own sinfulness—not like the sorrow he had felt before, which was more fear of punishment than real sorrow for sin. Now, he never doubted that Christ had saved and forgiven him, and therefore his peace never left him, though at times his joy did. He longed to know more of Christ, and to have more power over his own evil heart, but forgiveness he knew that he had, and he could now understand what it is to be a new creature. I hope to tell you in what follows how John Wesley ran the race in which he had at last started. His history, as God’s servant, properly begins here, and a wonderful history it is. But before I tell you about it I would ask you earnestly to consider all that I have hitherto told you about him. It concerns you. If you have not yet been born again, it is as needful for you as it was for him to pass through this great and glorious change from death to life. It will be a wonderful day when the body of John Wesley comes forth from the grave, made “like unto Christ’s glorious body,” but it was a more wonderful day in his history when he first heard the voice of Christ and lived. If you do not know what this means, be sure it has never yet happened to you. You see from the history of Wesley, it does not mean turning over a new leaf, or becoming religious, and kind to the poor. All these things could be said of him before. It is a mistake to think that an unsaved, unforgiven sinner never does what are commonly called “good works.” There are thousands who give to the poor, teach in Sunday schools, read the Bible, and say prayers, and “do many things” (which last we are told of Herod, who ended by mocking at the Lord Jesus).
What is really true about an unsaved sinner is that all he does are what God calls “dead works,” works that have in them nothing pleasing to God. They are like leaves and blossoms stuck upon a dead tree. The works of a believer are the leaves and blossoms which grow out of the living tree. Which case is yours? If it is the life that is wanting in your case, it is quite plain you cannot give it to yourself, and your case would indeed be an utterly hopeless one, if God did not undertake to do, not some of the work for you, but all. “Then,” you say, “I must wait till He does it.” This would be perfectly true if there were anything to wait for on the part of God. But let me remind you, that your salvation rests, not upon something God is going to do, but on something He has done. God will never do anything more to put away sin. If that is what you are waiting for, you may wait forever. When you look back to the cross on Calvary to see what He has done, and up to Christ who is in glory as the proof how fully that work on the cross has satisfied God—when you thus look, believing all was for you, you have eternal life. Just as when the dying Israelite looked up at the serpent, life flowed into him, so the moment you look up to Christ, owning Him as the One who bore all your punishment, the eternal life flows into your soul from God. It is all there, treasured up in Christ, ready for you now. And remember, too, that the life God gives is the very same life that is now in Christ in glory. “God has given to us eternal life, and this life is in His Son.” And again, He says, “Christ, who is our life.” With such a life flowing into us, well may we bring forth fruit to the praise and glory of God. It is no longer an imitation of Christ, but we may rather say a continuation of Christ. Wonderful thought! Do you say you must wait, then, till God calls you to take this free gift? He calls you now, by these words. If you do not receive it, it is because you refuse it. You cannot give it to yourself, but God has said “Whosoever will, let him take of the water of life freely.” God gives it, you only receive it.