John Wesley: The Boy Pulled From the Fire (A Brand Plucked From the Burning)

Just before midnight in 1709, the Wesley family’s rectory in Epworth, England caught fire. The father counted his children in the freezing yard and came up one short. Five-year-old John was still upstairs, trapped above the flames.

The Rescue That Almost Didn’t Happen

There was no time for a ladder. One neighbor climbed onto the shoulders of another, reached the window, and pulled the boy out just as the roof caved in. Seconds later the house collapsed into the fire. A moment slower and the world would never have heard the name John Wesley. His mother Susanna gathered her son and refused to call it luck. She named him with a phrase straight out of Zechariah 3:2, a brand plucked from the burning, the Bible’s picture of a soul rescued by grace.

Why Susanna Wesley Believed God Had a Plan

Susanna was sure God had spared John for a purpose, and she prayed over him accordingly. She was right. That boy grew up to ride a quarter of a million miles on horseback, preach more than forty thousand sermons, and help ignite a revival that crossed an ocean. The child pulled from the flames went on to set the world ablaze for God.

The Night You Should Not Have Made It

You may have your own brush with the fire. An accident that nearly happened. An illness that turned at the last moment. Maybe you called it luck. Look again. Psalm 138:8 says, The Lord will perfect that which concerns me. The God who spared you did not do it by accident. You are still here because He is not finished with you yet, and saved for something as surely as Wesley was.

John Wesley lived every day knowing he had been saved for something. You can live the same way, because the same is true of you.

And that, friend, is how God lifts up your day.

Keep looking up!
Pastor Rodney

Listen to the audio version on the Lift Up Your Day podcast.