Battle for the Mind:How You Can Think the ... - Destiny Image

The Street That Leads to Success—Truth From the Book of Romans 21
to the greatest reformation in the history of the Church. When Martin
Luther nailed his 95 theses to the Wittenburg door, he launched revival
fires that spread across 16th-century Europe.
an anglican’s encounter with
the Book oF romans
In the evening of May 24, 1738, a young Anglican minister ventured out
to attend a meeting with some Moravians who were gathering at Barclays
Bank on Aldersgate Street in London. This young man had started his religious
career with such high expectations. He had graduated from Oxford,
where he had been a member of a radical group of Christians called the
“Holy Club,” a club started by his younger brother. From there he crossed
the ocean to work with the Indians in the state of Georgia. He then returned
to England in despair and disillusionment because of his lack of spiritual
power. As the troubled young man walked into the meeting that night, the
most notable event in 18 th-century English history was only seconds away.
As he was sitting there in the meeting, someone began to read from Luther’s
Preface to the Book of Romans, where he describes what happens when
people open their hearts in simple faith toward the living God.
That young man was John Wesley. In his own style, the young minister
wrote these classic words:
I felt my heart strangely warmed. I felt I did trust in Christ,
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. 3
The warmth that was generated in his heart that night was about to set
all England ablaze with glorious revival.
At the age of 35, his life was changed, and there would be no going back
to the old ways of religion. The direction for his life was now set on a
new path—one that would focus on this message of faith in Christ. He
would know for the rest of his life that the God who is reflected in the
face of Jesus Christ had come down to earth to visit him and had done for
Wesley precisely what he could never have done for himself. His earlier zeal