I Met Him When I Was In The Dark Series

John Wesley was a very religious man. For those of you who don’t know it, John Wesley was our founder … along with his brother, Charles.

As I said … John Wesley was a very religious man from a very religious family. His father was an ordained Anglican priest. His brothers Samuel and Charles were also ordained Anglican or Episcopalian priests. And John himself was also an ordained priest of the Church of England … classically trained at Oxford University.

John was the 15th of 19 children. Let me repeat that. John was 15th of 19 children … all from the same mother, Susanna. Family life for the Wesleys was rigidly structured with exact times for prayer, Bible reading and Bible study, meals, and sleep. John’s mother, Susanna, home-schooled the children, teaching them religion as well as manners. They learned to be quiet, obedient, and hard-working. Every child … including the girls … were taught how to read and write as soon as they could walk. All of them were expected to become proficient in Latin and Greek, as well as memorize major portions of the New Testament. Susanna Wesley would examine each child before the mid-day and evening prayers. The children were not allowed to eat between meals and were interviewed singularly by their mother one evening each week for the purpose of intensive spiritual instruction … so you can see where John Wesley got his strict devotion to religious practices.

After reading William Law’s book, “Christian Perfection,” and “A Serious Call to a Devout Man and Holy Life,” Wesley said that he had a more sublime view of the Law of God and resolved to keep it … inwardly and outwardly and as sacredly as possible … believing that he could find salvation through a rigid and resolved determination to follow God’s Law.

John Wesley’s brother, Charles, followed his brother to Oxford University where they started a group “for the purpose of study and the pursuit of a devout Christian life.” Members of the group met every day from 6 a.m. to 9 a.m. to pray, to read the psalms, and study the New Testament in Greek.

Let that sink in. They met EVERYDAY … Monday through Sunday … from 6 a.m. to 9 a.m. to pray, read the psalms, and study the New Testament … in Greek!

They prayed every waking hour, can you believe that? During every hour that they were awake, they would take a minute or two and stop whatever they were doing and pray. They started out every day by asking God to give them a special virtue … such as wisdom or patience or generosity. They fasted every Wednesday and every Friday from waking until 3 p.m. … and then they took the money that they would have spent on food and gave it to the poor. They preached … they educated … they paid off the debt of prisoners in debtor prisons … cared for the sick … and set up free pharmacies.

Whew! Amen?

Because of their strict religious practices, they were mocked and branded as “religious fanatics” by their classmates, who called them “Bible worms” and [pause] ... “Methodists.” Now you know how we got our name … “Methodists.” While it was meant as a term of derision and ridicule, the group … especially John Wesley … adopted it and wore it as a badge of honor. I’m glad that Wesley chose the title “Methodists” instead of “Bible Worms,” aren’t you?

Wesley faithfully .. and I do mean faithfully … recorded his daily activities in a diary … writing down which resolutions and which laws he failed to keep or broke. He ranked his “hourly” … “hourly” … “temper of devotion” … his religiosity … on a scale of 1 to 9. “Let’s see, at 9 a.m. I was feeling, oh, strong in my devotion … so I’ll give myself a 7. At 3 p.m. … not so strong … I’ll give myself a 4.”

And yet … for all this religious activity and devotion … Wesley couldn’t shake the feeling that something was … well … missing.

Nicodemus was a very religious man. Verse 1 says that Nicodemus was a Pharisee and a “leader of the Jews.” Later on we find out that he was a member of the 71 sages who served on the Sanhedrin … a very powerful group of Jewish men who controlled the religious welfare and direction of the entire Jewish nation. Whatever they decided or commanded was done.

Nicodemus was someone that Saul of Tarsus would have looked up to … a Hebrew born of Hebrews … a devout descendant of Abraham through Isaac, through Jacob, from the tribe of Levi. He could probably quote his lineage from memory if asked. He was not only a “Hebrew born of Hebrews” but “as to the Law, a Pharisee … as to righteousness under the Law, blameless” (Philippines 3:5-6).