Some people thought John Wesley was unwise in the time he and his preachers dedicated to Ireland. In the course of his many years of itinerant preaching, when we count the time he spent in his many trips to Ireland, Wesley spent 6 years there! When questioned about the time, effort, and expenditure, he would say, “Ireland will repay you.”
Viewed one way, it looked like Wesley was wrong; the Methodists in Ireland had a booming start and then dwindled. But one must remember, in 1840, Ireland had 8 million people. By 1850, slightly over 4 million. The mass emigration of the Irish around the world spread Methodism more effectively than any mission work done previously; at the 1869 British Methodist Conference, it was said “you could not place your foot in any colony of the British Empire that does not include a convert of the Irish Methodist Church. She produced more ministers than any similar sized church.”
At the Irish Methodist Conference of 1804, the preachers sought to answer: “What can be done for the revival of the work of God in Ireland?” They responded with 9 points of action.
Let us humble ourselves before God. The revival must begin with us. Let us use self-denial.
Let us be more careful in giving to God, thought Jesus Christ, the entire glory of all the good wrought in and by us. He must be our all in all.
Let us as preachers be more simple, evangelical, practical, and zealous in our preaching.
Let us not aim at what sermon-hunters call “fine preaching,” in order to be popular.
Let us frequently insist on the doctrine of original sin. It is not stale or worn out. It is fundamental.
Let us, above all things, be zealous to bring our hearers to the fountain opened for sin and uncleannes.
Let us press upon believers the necessity of increasing in holiness and dying daily and walking with God.
Let us faithfully preach practical holiness and tear the mask from the hypocrite.
Let us never omit a pointed, faithful, yet loving application at the close of our sermons.
I think we need some similar kind of resolutions to awaken us to the work, to be ready for what God would do among us. What do you think?