WesleyGospel Ministries

CHURCH HISTORY, Book II. Chapter 15.

1. And thus when the divine word had made its home among them, the power of Simon was quenched and immediately destroyed, together with the man himself. And so greatly did the splendor of piety illumine the minds of Peter’s hearers that they were not satisfied with hearing once only, and were not content with the unwritten teaching of the divine Gospel, but with all sorts of entreaties they besought Mark, a follower of Peter, and the one whose Gospel is extant, that he would leave them a written monument of the doctrine which had been orally communicated to them. Nor did they cease until they had prevailed with the man, and had thus become the occasion of the written Gospel which bears the name of Mark.

2. And they say that Peter — when he had learned, through a revelation of the Spirit, of that which had been done — was pleased with the zeal of the men, and that the work obtained the sanction of his authority for the purpose of being used in the churches. Clement in the eighth book of his Hypotyposes gives this account, and with him agrees the bishop of Hierapolis named Papias. And Peter makes mention of Mark in his first epistle which they say that he wrote in Rome itself, as is indicated by him, when he calls the city, by a figure, Babylon, as he does in the following words: The church that is at Babylon, elected together with you, salutes you; and so does Marcus my son. 1 Peter 5:13

Truth is fallen in the street.
–Isaiah 59:14 (KJV)–

Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past,
through the forbearance of God.
–Romans 3:25 (KJV)–

The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit,
that we are the children of God.
–Romans 8:16 (KJV)–

Did not our heart burn within us,
while he talked with us by the way,
and while he opened to us the Scriptures?
–Luke 24:32 (KJV)–

Holding faith, and a good conscience;
which some having put away concerning faith have made shipwreck.
–1 Timothy 1:19 (KJV)–

In the evening I went very unwillingly to a society in Aldersgate Street, where one was reading Luther’s Preface to the Epistle to the Romans. About a quarter before nine, while he was describing the change which God works in the heart through faith in Christ, 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. –John Wesley, Journal for May 24, 1738

W. Kostlevy, ed. Historical Dictionary of the Holiness Movement (Rowman, 2025).

John Wesley, A Plain Account of Christian Perfection (Beacon Hill Press, 1966).

—. Calvinism Calmly Considered (Schmul, 2001).

—. Wesleyana (Allegheny Publications, 1979).

Adam Clarke, Christian Theology (Schmul, 1990).

Charles Finney, Lectures to Professing Christians (J. S. Taylor, 1837).

A. W. Tozer, The Pursuit of God (Christian Publications, 1993).

Dr. Thomas C. Oden, John Wesley’s Scriptural Christianity (Zondervan, 1994).

Dr. Harald Lindström, Wesley and Sanctification (Zondervan, 1998).

Dr. Kenneth J. Collins, Wesley on Salvation (Zondervan, 1989).

The first testimony is from Ronald Reagan, an evangelist with Church of God (Cleveland, TN). The same as Mary K. Baxter, who published A Divine Revelation of Hell (Whitaker House, 1993). Howard Storm’s book is My Descent Into Death (Harmony, 2005). Storm was a pastor in United Church of Christ from 1992 until 2011, which is surprisingly enough, a mainline liberal denomination. Across the denomination, tolerance of the gay lifestyle seemed to have been a mixed bag, reaching it’s fully gay affirming position in 2011, the year that Storm retired. After his retirement, he continued to travel around and share his Hell experience in these increasingly liberal UCC churches. These testimonies were the precursors to Bill Wiese’s 23 Minutes In Hell (Charisma House, 2006). As far as I understand, Bill is a non-denominational evangelist. Along with the evangelistic ministries of Ray Comfort, Leonard Ravenhill, David Wilkerson, Paul Washer, and Andrew Strom–Wiese’s testimony has had a tremendous impact on my spiritual life. Rawlings’ book is unique in that it’s a collection of visions of Hell by a born again medical doctor. Visions and dreams of Hell have been written about for all of human history. We have a reference to them in Job 33:15-18: “In a dream, in a vision of the night…He may speak in their ears and terrify them with warnings, to turn them from wrongdoing…to preserve them from the Pit.” Lengthy visionary accounts of Dante’s Inferno type visions of Hell can be found in Old Testament pseudepigrapha and New Testament apocryphal writings, which were surveyed in Martha Himmelfarb’s Tours of Hell (Fortress Press, 1985), ch. 1. These continued in medieval Europe after the Bible was written: Eileen Gardiner’s Visions of Heaven and Hell Before Dante (Italica Press, 1989). She compiled a long chronological bibliography here (some are gnostic writings and shouldn’t be taken seriously, but the ones about Catholic saints could be authentic charismatic testimonies). They were also journaled in the Great Awakenings. Such things come from the realm of the spirit, are timeless and eternal, are an interracial and international collective human experience, far exceeding the boundaries of the written word; and we have the most reliable references to them in the pages of the Bible: the divinely inspired, authoritative, inscripturated Word of God to mankind. –J.B.

Extremely convicting warning from this man of God.
GET RIGHT WITH GOD NOW!!
–J.B.–

Kerrigan answers a popular thought expressed by secular humanists.
–J.B.–