In today's episode, the guys discuss the evangelist George Whitefield. Whitefield was born in Gloucester, England in 1714 and died in 1770. At age 21, he was converted while studying at the University of oxford. Along with John Wesley and Charles Wesley, he was part of the Holy Club. For 5 years, Whitefield sought after salvation and became nearly ascetic to obtain favor with God. It wasn’t until Charles Wesley gave him a book by Henry Scougal that Whitefield was radically transformed into a brand new creature of Christ. He began preaching in London and Bristol before coming to the U.S. at 24 years old.
Whitefield is credited as being the impetus behind the First Great Awakening. He traveled from town to town on horseback to preach the gospel around America during a wicked time. He preached 30,000 sermons in his lifetime and was known to study the gospel while on his knees. He was a person who was able to disengage himself from the fear of man and momentary comforts for what is more important. They key for him and for us is to realize all we have in Christ. The guys encourage all listeners to think about how differently we might move through life if we knew today was our last day on earth.
From the preaching of Whitefield and his contemporaries, we can glean and be inspired to love the Lord in a fiery way. As Christians, we have the entire history of the family of God as our ancestors. The same Holy Spirit that was in George Whitefield is in you, too. Since the Apostles, there has not been anyone who has preached as prolifically and effectively as Whitefield. One thing we can not do with heroes of the faith is venerate them. While we can look at them as heroes, we have to remember that they were also flawed and sinful creatures just like us. To do this, we must remind ourselves that we too have blind spots. Even with his flaws, however, we can be sure that Whitefield was a man who lived for Christ.
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Learn more about the hosts of this podcast.
Ray Comfort
Emeal (“E.Z.”) Zwayne
Mark Spence
Oscar Navarro
