Wesley's Last Letter

In January 1791, William Wilberforce sat exhausted in his London study, nearly ready to abandon his campaign against the slave trade. Four years of parliamentary defeats had hollowed him out. He had not asked anyone for encouragement — pride and weariness had sealed his lips.

Six days before John Wesley's death, the eighty-seven-year-old preacher summoned the strength to dictate one final letter. It arrived at Wilberforce's door unsolicited, unlooked for. "Unless God has raised you up for this very thing," Wesley wrote, "you will be worn out by the opposition of men and devils. But if God be for you, who can be against you?" Wesley urged him forward, then closed with a prayer that the One who had guided him since youth would strengthen him "to go on, in His name and in the power of His might."

Wilberforce had not asked for a sign. Like King Ahaz in Isaiah 7, he was too weary, too proud, too buried in doubt to seek one. But God gave it anyway — not through thunder or celestial fire, but through the trembling hand of a dying old man and a few sentences scratched on paper.

That is the heart of Immanuel. God does not wait for our invitation. When Ahaz refused to ask, the Lord said, "I will give you a sign myself." A child would be born whose very name declared the unshakable truth of Isaiah 8:10 — God is with us. Whether we ask or not, He comes.