Soon we will be preparing the fireplaces for those wonderful winter fires. We are fascinated by fire. We speak romantically about fires and fireplaces on cold, snowy days. We watch fires burn and we become nostalgic and sentimental. We are both attracted by and frightened by fire.

A number of years ago students in a class on Church History were assigned to do a paper on a significant church leader. One student chose John Wesley. He worked diligently on his research and writing, and expected a high mark. He did not get the high grade. He went to talk with the Professor, who asked the student, "Why did you leave out the Aldersgate experience when writing about John Wesley?" The student replied, "I do not believe in Aldersgate." The Professor then said, "It does not matter whether or not you believe in Aldersgate. The only thing that is important is that John Wesley believed in Aldersgate. You cannot understand John Wesley unless you understand what Aldersgate meant to him."

When John Wesley was a lad living in the parsonage at Epworth where his father was the Priest at the local Anglican Church, he was part of a horrible fire which totally destroyed his home and his belongings. In his Journal he describes himself as being a "Brand plucked from the burning." For much of his early life, he had absolutely no idea why he had been saved. In fact, that experience plagued him not only with the memories and nightmares you might expect, but also with his need to understand why God had saved him.

After the Aldersgate experience where his heart was "strangely warmed," he began using imagery of heat and fire to describe his new-found condition. The Aldersgate experience answered the question he had been asking since his youth at Epworth. Now he knew that there had been a reason for him to have been saved from the upper floor of that inferno.

Aldersgate was critical to Wesley. Aldersgate confirmed the meaning of being "plucked from the burning" at Epworth. At Aldersgate, John Wesley experienced the conversion experience which altered the shape of his entire ministry. He described that experience by saying, "My heart was strangely warmed." ("Strangely warmed" It is not a fire in the fireplace, but "strangely warmed" may just be close enough to a fire to demonstrate my point.) What did the "Heart Strangely Warmed" experience at Aldersgate mean to John Wesley? It gave Wesley the assurance that he, even he, could be saved; saved completely, and know with certainty that he had been saved.