George Whitefield

George Whitefield was born at the Bell Inn and Tavern in Gloucester, England, nine days before Christmas, 1714. His parents owned the inn, and though not rich were at least comfortable. Thomas Whitefield died when George was only seven years old. At 15, he had to leave school to help his mother run the inn.

One of his responsibilities was to tend the bar. He was a great favorite of the customers, who liked his impersonations. One of his best impersonations was of the Rev. Mr. Cole, the Pastor of the Southgate Chapel in Gloucester. Who could foresee that this lad, who loved to poke fun at God’s ministers, would himself one day set England and America on fire as an evangelist?

His strong desire for more education was at first thwarted by poverty. When he learned he could work his way through he finished his grammar school as quickly as he could, and by 19 years old was at Oxford. He was attracted at once, not to the riotous, apparently carefree lives of the majority, but to the small group called the Holy Club. He vowed to live by the rule, and entered wholeheartedly into the rigorous program the Wesley brothers had organized. Fasting, visiting the sick and poor, praying and meditating for hours all were part of his effort to find peace with God.

Peace would not come. He agonized, and tried every possible avenue to obtain it. Someone suggested to him, “When Christ cried, ‘I thirst,’ he was near the end of his suffering.” Whitefield flung himself on his bed, and from the depths of his soul cried out “I thirst! I thirst!” Soon he felt the burden lifted. He rejoiced in God his Saviour. He had been born again.

If his zeal of the flesh had been strong, it was no match for that which followed. He continued the visitation program, but now he had a living message. He also went with a heart full of love, not merely fulfilling a religious obligation for his own benefit. People responded to his word, and friends urged him to be ordained. Somewhat against his will, for he wished to wait for a clear call from God, he was ordained, still only 21 years old.

He spent three months in Georgia following John Wesley’s unhappy departure from that field, and God amazingly blessed the young preacher. He returned, seeking funds to build an orphanage, but found most of the church doors closed to him. Since few of the clergy were born-again Christians, they resented his clear and forceful style.

They shut him out, but the effect was to thrust him out into God’s ready harvest. He preached his first outdoor sermon to about 200 miners, at Kingswood. Before long, the crowds had swelled to 20,000. This was the first time they had heard the story of Jesus applied to them, and they responded. Hundreds were soundly and thoroughly converted.

In August of 1739, Whitefield turned the work over to John Wesley and returned to Georgia, prepared to build his orphanage. The ship landed in the north, so he preached his way south from Philadelphia to Savannah, where he built the Bethesda Orphanage. He returned to the north, preaching to thousands in the fields. At times, his voice was almost drowned out by their tears, as they bitterly repented. He visited Jonathan Edwards in Massachusetts, and held a series of meetings in Edwards’ church.

On his return to England, his admiration for Mrs. Edwards led him to seek his own wife. He married in 1741, to a widow named Elizabeth James.. She scarcely ever saw him for the next thirty years, as he spent himself unsparingly on both sides of the Atlantic.

He crossed back and forth between England and America many times, spending in all nearly 800 days at sea. He preached over 2,000 times in his short life, many times speaking for forty hours in one week. He preached to high and low alike, and the harvest was ripe.

In theology he was a Calvinist. He separated with John Wesley over this issue, yet they remained friends. He refused to be limited to any one denomination, but reached out to all he could wherever he was. He did not preach a gospel of ease, or get results by “easy believism.” He pressed for earnest repentance, and declared, “Repentance does not come by fits and starts; it is one continued act of our lives.” And again, “If you lament and bewail past sins, and do not forsake them, your repentance is in vain. You are mocking God, and deceiving your own soul....”

He willingly wore himself out for his Master. When Wesley saw him about 1760, he wrote in his journal, “He seemed to be an old man...though he had hardly seen fifty years.” In 1769 he returned to America for the last time. He preached to the end, dying at two o’clock in the morning following his last great sermon, on September 30, 1770. So great was his influence, that even the news of his death had influence over men. One scoffer realized, “Whitefield is dead, but he is in heaven. I am on the road to Hell.” He surrendered to Christ, and became a disciple of Christ himself.