Hanham Mount: Wesley & Whitfield Together

Every once in a while you have the opportunity of standing somewhere that you’ve read about all of your life and you begin to understand the significance of the place and somehow it even becomes a very reverent place because you know that something very significant happened right here.

I’m actually standing at a place where John Wesley and Whitfield preached the gospel out of doors. Now this, of course, was remarkable because the Church of England, the Anglican Church, believed that the gospel should only be preached within the walls of a church. And so many of them despised these outdoor preachers. They believed that the gospel was limited and should be preached only there. But John Wesley, he said that the entire world is my parish.

And if you could see here on this particular platform, there’s the words of scripture, how beautiful are the feet of those who preach the gospel of peace. And you and I standing here thinking about the miners which would have come up on the hill behind me, It is said by a chronicler that as they came with their faces filled with soot, they began to weep and those tears streamed down their faces and you could see the streaks even as their tears washed their cheeks. They came here looking for hope. And in their tears, as they responded to the message that they heard, in their tears they found that Jesus Christ would come to them despite their need, despite their poverty, despite their trials. Jesus assured them there was an eternity waiting for them that they could count on.

We’re living at a time when, of course, people are no longer interested in the gospel to the same extent that they were back then. It was a very needy time. It was a time of poverty. It was a time of plenty of injustice. But Wesley and Whitfield had a message that touched their hearts.

Even though their outer circumstances might not change, the fact is that the gospel of Jesus Christ could give them hope, not only in this life, but in the life to come. So, what we have to do in our own age is to ask ourselves this question, how can we be motivated by those who have gone before us, and what can we do to get the gospel to the entire world? Let’s never forget the words of scripture, blessed are the feet of those who preach the gospel of peace. So even as we stand here today, let us be sobered, let us be humbled, and let us remember that even for us, the people that we meet in the common experience of life, may we be able to say with John Wesley, the world is our parish. Everyone that we meet needs the same message of hope, the same message of transformation. And let’s never forget, that message comes only through Jesus Christ, our Lord.