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Well, good evening. By the way, this is the little book by Stephen J. Lawson. So you can see it's not very intimidating at all. And it is chock full of great information about Woodfill, and it's very readable. I don't think we have it in our resources, but maybe we can order some of these.

Okay, well, it's a great little book. I highly recommend it. All right, well, we're going to have to go fast tonight. So I have left over from last time the slide of Charles Chauncey up there, and he represents pretty much the opposition to the Great Awakening. And he is in some ways almost typical of some of the types that are opposed to the Great Awakening, putting themselves forth as sort of the Pharisees of their day.

And it turns out, secretly, he was abandoning the faith. And oftentimes, these folks are buried within the church, various denominations. And in his case, he is the pastor of the First Congregationalist Church of Boston. And that was the largest church in the colonial America at the time. And therefore, he was very prestigious, and he had a very important position, and, of course, came from Hivet.

He was totally, by the end of his career, a non-believer. He is emblematic of many within the Congregationalist Church that wind up going Unitarian, and he winds up being total universalist. You know, there is no hell, everybody's going to go to heaven. Okay, and we have a few of those around today, in fact.

And so, anyway, so I think one reason some people were so opposed is that secretly they were not even Christians, you know. So, but he's not our subject tonight. This is our subject tonight, George Whitfield. Born 1714, Gloucester, England, youngest of seven children by Thomas and Elizabeth Whitfield.

And his father died when he's only two. His mother remarried briefly, but that stepdad just disappeared, ran away, left them. And so she tried to provide for her children by running an inn, which she and her first husband had acquired, the Bell Inn, and which is one of the oldest inns in England.

Unfortunately, I think back in the 50s, they finally tore it down. But it was located at a very important point where you have people going from Wales to England and then from there to London. Very well-traveled place. All sorts, of course, would stay there at the end, including actors.

And the young Whitfield loved acting. He could recite Shakespeare, and he loved to visit with the actors. And he himself, from being a small child, was just a natural actor, which you wouldn't think he'd be able to be because of some of his physical appearances. The main one, which we've already discussed, is cross-eyed.

You know, this is a result of, as I think, four years old, contracted measles, and one of his eyes was turned. And, of course, Lloyd Jones talks about Whitfield, and he says, This gave the effect that no matter who was in the audience or where they were seated, they felt like he was looking at them.

So, anyway, he is very, very sharp, very intelligent, but had no money. And someone came and told the mom he had been going to a local school there, and he dropped out because he thought he wouldn't be able to go to college anywhere. But this person came to his mom, told him he can be a servitor.

You know what that is? You get to go to Oxford and you can be a college student, but you basically serve your servant to all the wealthy students. And that's what he did. Now, of course, having worked in an inn, he knew all about service. You know, everything from making beds to making sure, you know, had breakfast and all that.

He was very good at his job. He was very popular at Oxford as a result of that. And he made friends very readily. You know, he's a very lovable character from what everyone seems to testify of him. And while there, he is going to run into a group of very zealous young men, all of which were higher class than him.

But they were meeting together in what came to be known as the Holy Club. Now, I'm pretty sure this started off as pejorative here. People were making fun of them, those holy rollers or, you know, whatever, the Holy Club. But they sort of embraced it. And these were young men who were extraordinarily religious, extraordinarily zealous.

And they came up with what they call a method of growing, you know, in their Christianity. And from this, we get the word Methodism. And these were the beginnings of the Methodist movement. And Whitfield became fast friends with two of the main members of this group. Almost all these guys later became famous in England, in this particular group, partly because of the rigid self-discipline they had in doing all.

All their studies and all this sort of thing. But two most famous for our purposes are the Wesley brothers, Charles and John, who, of course, were in station in life higher than Whitfield class-wise. But Charles particularly liked Whitfield. Later, John, actually, he and John would much later be closer than he and Charles.

But starting off, Charles Wesley gave him a book, and this was Henry Skrugal's The Life of God in the Soul of Man. And in that book, Skrugal pretty much points out you can't work your way into heaven, which is exactly what the Holy Club was trying to do.

And, of course, at this point in his life, he is sort of Armenian, you know, in his beliefs that, you know, you can have part in your salvation. And this just pulled the rug out from under him, and he is miserable. Previously, he had tried to do everything he could to become a new creature in Christ and didn't know how to do it.

You know, he was trying to work his way into heaven. And in fact, there's a lot of similarities between he and Luther. You know, they both are lower income, but, you know, in a university where everybody else is more noble than they are. And he also, you know, he started fasting.

Some occasions he is so weak from fasting he could barely, you know, even walk to his class. He just did all kinds of crazy things, much like Luther did. You know, Luther famously said, I did everything a monk should do, and had it continued, I would have, you know, died.

And finally, he had a salvation experience, a recognition that it's by grace you're saved, by faith, not by works. And he then, of course, you know, became a born-again Christian. And that would be one of his key phrases in every sermon: you must be born again. You know, John 3 is one of his favorite chapters.

And so he, you know, went through all this, which I'm letting you read on your own. And he, of course, from that point on, had just a total change in character. And he was full of joy and happiness. And as it says up there, you know, he couldn't stop singing the Psalms.

So, Whitfield, after doing this, winds up going to the Bishop of Gloucester. He's about 21 years old. And the Bishop of Gloucester was just blown away by his manner. His character, and normally you don't ordain someone when you're 21 years old, but he decided to go ahead and ordain him.

And he shortly thereafter gave his first sermon, and a lot of complaints. Somebody wrote, the bishop says, 15 people were driven mad by that young man's sermon. To which the bishop replied, I hope the madness lasts till next Sunday. And so, anyway, I like that bishop of Gloucester.

And so he, you know, just takes off like crazy after that. You know, different friends who were already in ministry would invite him to supply for them. Every time he went to supply for them, just, you know, he had an amazing, you know, these charismatics like to talk about the anointing of God.

Well, he really did have an anointing in terms of his sincerity and his zeal for sharing Christ. And it just glowed from him as he would preach and electrify people as they listened to him. And, you know, frankly, Parvit, he himself, you know, he was an actor, but I don't mean that a negative way.

He would totally get into the scripture passage and then he would partially, you know, expose it and at the same time act it out. And he'd get so emotionally wrought up in the sermon that he himself. Was be overwhelmed by it, you know. And I know myself, I can get into historical character, and I start tearing up when I start realizing what these poor people were going through.

And he would do this, and even his cross eyes, he could even use that to get attention, but focus the attention on the Word of God. And people were just brought up and into the sermon as he'd be preaching it. And he had a voice that I'm pretty famous for a loudmouth myself, but apparently I'd be just tweeting compared to him.

You know, just a little, he could preach to thousands of people and they would hear him. And we'll get to how we know that's actually factually true. So, let's just get into it. George Whitfield, I think, simply does not get the attention today in church history that he should.

I think I can safely say it after studying him that the very Great Awakening itself may not have happened, at least to the degree it did, without him. Of course, the Lord used him, couldn't possibly happen without the Lord, and anything I say. But he really was a key element of the Great Awakening.

And as we're going to find out, It wasn't just an American phenomenon, it was everywhere this guy went. England was awakened, Wales was awakened, Scotland was majorly awakened when he would pass through. And really, he set the whole standard of this mass preaching. What happened was, yes, he was ordained by the Anglican Church, but because he stirred up so much controversy by the style and the very personal way he went about preaching, a lot of preachers were so jealous of him that they would deny him their pulpits.

And many churches would not allow him to come inside the building to preach. And so Whitfield's attitude about was, that's okay, I'll just preach outside the church in the courtyard. And he would do so. And this turned into these massive meetings. And, of course, later on, you would have others come along, such as D.L.

Moody, which we just had today, and Billy Sunday, and Billy Ground, and a host of others I don't have up there. Many of these guys were channeling what Whitfield had done long before what they were doing. And so this is laid down by Whitfield. Now, I came Across this quotation several different places, but and there's some variations of it, but basically it goes like this: Some have said that if Calvin was the greatest theologian, and if Jonathan Edwards was the greatest philosopher of Christianity, and Charles Hatton Spurgeon was the greatest pastor, then George Whitfield was the greatest evangelist.

And definitely, I think that would probably be true for the church. And there he is. You notice he's got that handkerchief there. Well, he had that because he would preach and he would sweat. And so he literally had to have that handkerchief because he's just, you know, just face would massively be sweating as he's preaching.

And, of course, you can see people be strongly affected there as he preaches. Now, and by the way, the thing that's during the high point of the Great Awakening, you've got to remember, he wasn't an old man like that. And actually, he never was that old. He died, I think he's 55, but he looked like a man of 80.

And you'll see why as we get to going here. But during the height of the Second Great Awakening, which I believe that's his second trip, he is only like, he's in his early 20s. All the despictions say young, slim youth, some say, you know, as he's preaching, so it's pretty amazing.

John Newton, the author of Amazing Grace, when asked who's the greatest preacher he'd ever heard, he said, George Whitfield, without a doubt. The harder question is: who's the second greatest preacher I've ever heard? Okay, so he went on to say that he eyewitnessed, of course, Newton wasn't normally preaching in London, but he would visit.

And one time he was there, got up early in the morning to go see Whitfield preach, because Whitfield would show up in London. In fact, the people had built a huge tabernacle farm there in London. There are several different locations in London, and they'd build these tabernacles for him.

And he'd go there to preach 6 o'clock in the morning. And it said the streets of London at 5 o'clock were clogged with traffic, people trying to get there in order to get a seat to hear Whitfield preach. At one point, it is said a crowd of 85,000.

I don't know how in the world. It just sounds impossible, but just huge numbers would come to hear him preach. And this is to point out, he actually had larger crowds in England than he did America. A lot of people, you know, just hear what he did in America, and they're not aware that he was just as big, if not bigger, in England.

And so, Now, at the high point of all this preaching, he then decides, I'm going to go to America. You know, he'd heard about 13 colonies. And, of course, he came seven times. And 1740 is the high point of the Great Awakening, and the high point hits with him arriving.

And this is the 1740 tour. And, of course, some have said that this was the greatest missionary journey by anyone since the time of the Apostle Paul. And it just, you know, it's extraordinary what's going to happen. Spurgeon, you know, you've heard my opinion now. Some people, some of you might admire, see what they said.

Spurgeon called him the chief of preachers. There's no end to the interest that attaches to such men, to such a man as George Whitfield. Often I have read his life, I am conscious of a distinct quickening whenever I turn to it. He lived. Other men seemed only to be half alive, but Whitfield was all life, fire, wing, force.

My own model, if I may have such a thing, in due subordination to my Lord, is George Whitfield. But with unequal footsteps, I must follow his glorious track. You Spurgeon fans out there, that's a pretty amazing thing for someone like him to say. Then you got all three of these.

We've had people cover this in our series this year. J.C. Ryle, and they had a ton of quotations about Whitfield. I picked some of the same ones Lawson picked, but there was a lot more I found out as I went on. He says, With unrivaled voice, manner, delivery, action, and command of words, Whitfield stands alone.

There's no Englishman who has ever lived who is the equal of Whitfield. And, you know, you have Edward's wife, Sarah, when he came to Northampton to preach, she wrote to a friend, and she just couldn't believe it. Said, you know, his ability to speak was unrivaled. She'd never heard anyone, and remember, her husband was a pretty famous speaker himself, but she was just amazed.

And then she cut mentions, which I've found several other places. I think Garrick, who was a famous actor, English actor of the day, said that he would pay a fortune to be able just to say the word oh. Oh. I mean, Whitfield could do that in so many different ways.

Another claimed that Whitfield could bring tears by just pronouncing. Pronouncing the word Mesopotamia. And he was just incredible. Robert Burray McShea, the famous Scottish pastor who himself burned him out, who did him? How old was he when he passed away? 30. 30. Yeah, very young. But he said, oh, to live just one week, the life of George Whitfill, I would be fulfilled and overflowing.

And Wesley, now, you know, his relationship with the Wesleys is a bit complicated and somewhat pained. I don't know how else to put it because, you know, he was a five-point Calvinist, Whitfill was. In fact, that was much of his driving force. I know some have accused Calvinists of not being interested in sharing the gospel.

I know we used, you know, some primitive Baptists particularly are famous for that. But that was not the case. And, of course, Joe Spurgeon was a Calvinist, too. And he is probably the most evangelistic Calvinist you'll ever know about. And, of course, the problem with the Wesleys, they were Armenian.

And at one point, they fracture over this. In fact, both sides say some not too nice things about each other. Okay, just put that. Way, but they later reconciled. In fact, Whitfield told Wesley, if I die before you do, which is interesting because Wesley's almost 10 years older than him, but he did.

He outlived Whitfield. And so John Wesley will preach his funeral back in England. Of course, the body's in America. He dies in America. It stays in America. But he, you know, all England was in mourning when he died. And so he preached the main funeral that was the most attended in England.

And he just said, Not since the days of the apostles have we ever heard of a preacher with the power and might of George Whitfield. So Whitfield's an interesting guy. He should buy this book and read about him. Okay, or borrow it. Check it out in the library.

Whitfield, of course, anytime you're famous, and particularly anytime you're preaching the Word of God, you will have criticism, no doubt. And to give you a little taste of this, you have the Duchess of Buckingham replying to the Countess of Huntington. Selena, who's, by the way, one of Whitfield's later big backers financially, she, in fact, was very involved.

And you actually had a split within the Methodist. Movement. Originally, Whitfill and a whole bunch of his followers called themselves Methodists, but they were Calvinist Methodists. A lot of people don't realize that. In fact, some claim that Whitfield should justly receive the credit for starting the Methodist movement.

And I think there's a very good argument to support that. He would later submit to the Wesleys and even hand over his leadership to them. But anyway, you have this noble lady was very concerned about her class of people because she knew they weren't saved. And so she was always trying to encourage English nobility to come and listen to Whitfill preach.

And she invited the Duchess of Buckingham. And so I want y'all to see this very noble lady's reaction to the invitation. And I think, Liza, are you going to do this for me? All right. Now, channel a snobbish, stuck-up English lady here. Okay. All right. Do the best you can do.

I'm just going to read it. I thank your ladyship for the information concerning Methodist preachers. Their doctrines are most repulsive and strongly tinctured with the impertinence and dishes. Respect towards their superiors. In perpetually endeavoring to level all ranks and do away with all distinctions, it is monstrous to be told that you have a heart as sinful as the common wretches that crawl on the earth.

This is highly offensive and insulting, and I cannot but wonder that your ladyship should relish any sentiments so much at variance with high rank and good breeding. Oh. Oh, my goodness. To be told that you have a heart as sinful as the common wretches that crawl on the earth.

This is highly offensive and insulting. And I cannot but wonder that your ladyship should relish any sentiments. Okay, I think we see what's going on there, right? And I think right here is one of the reasons why the Great Awakening has longer live force in America than it did in England.

One of the things that really stifling things in England is this classism that they were so eat up with, you know. And notice what she said in there, you know, breaking, leveling all class distinctions. One of the big things about the Great Awakening, which I know I'm going to run out of time, so I'll just try to work this in real quick, is it really.

Is going to emphasize this doctrine of priesthood of the believer, which is very precious to Baptists, by the way. Now, you have the scriptural meanings of that, but I want you to know in America it took on political meanings that's quite different from the scripture, but very still very important politically to America.

And that is this idea that God is no respecter of persons. And with that, you come this notion politically of total equality. Many, many intellectual historians have often asked what brought the American people during the Revolution around to this radical notion, we hold these truths, what? That all men are created equal.

You gotta understand, back in England, that's a radical notion. And many, many books have been read and say, oh, it had to be the Enlightenment. It had to be called something Jean-Jacques Rousseau said, or, you know, Baron de Montesquieu, or Voltaire, you know, one of these guys. The troll that you ask an ordinary American just during the Revolutionary War, do you believe that because of Baron de Montesquieu?

Rousevier. Roges Pierre, who's he? Baron de what? Never heard of him, right? Americans now, most American intellectual historians agree, the Great Awakening had ended up bringing Americans to this view that, you know, we're all sinners. We're all equal before the eyes of God. God's no respecter of persons.

And if you really believe that, can you now believe that you should bow down and be subservient to a guy who calls himself a king? See the point there? So the Great Awakening had profound influences, not just religiously, but even politically. And I would even argue this concept of priesthood believer really leads ultimately to the American view of tolerance.

I mean, true tolerance, not what they're calling tolerance today. But anyway, just had very important influences. Now, Whitfield, I just put in there just a little blurb. He does marry. In fact, one of the things that finally convinced him to marry was Edwards. When he goes and visits Edwards, he was just bowled over by the relationship between Edwards and his wife and the children that Edwards had and how they behaved and acted towards one another.

But Whitfield, he just sort of picks a wife out that a friend told him about, didn't really know her from anything, and she was a widow, and he goes and he marries her, but then he really didn't do the job of a good husband in terms of being around.

He was always gone, and it's also kind of sad, too, because she had numerous miscarriages. One child survived for about four months, a little boy, and passed away, and so never did have children. And sometime after that, she passed away. So, anyway, not much back home in terms of support with the wife because she didn't live that long, and he decided not to marry again.

But anyway, let's keep on going. Let's see. Let's see. Matt, could you read this one for me? Galatians 3:26 through 29. For ye are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus. For as many of you as been baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free.

Neither male nor female, for ye all are one in Christ Jesus. And if ye be Christ, then are ye Abraham's seeds and heirs according to the promise. Of course, I'm using King James because that's probably what he'd be using. But once again, that further emphasizes this idea of equality for God, which is going to again and again come out by the awakening preachers.

Now, and one other thing, too, about his Calvinism. He is a Calvinist, but he didn't really know much about Calvin. He rarely said much about Calvin. And interestingly enough, when asked about his beliefs in Calvinism, he'd always say, I became a Calvinist by reading the Bible. And he repeatedly mentioned, and that's where he came to his faith in the Calvinist view.

Now, talk about studying the Bible. You know, sort of like Martin Luther, anything Woodfield does, he does overboard. He felt like when he studied the Bible, now, you know, I like to sit down in a nice, comfortable chair. Woodfield felt you should be on your knees because that would help you.

Have more respect for what you're going to read. So his practice was to get down on his knees, and he really at this point began to forget about reading other books. And he just concentrated on the Bible and was a crudeness, Concordance, and Matthew Henry. And he had Matthew Henry almost memorized.

In fact, people going over his sermons, you can tell this came from Matthew Henry again and again. And you just for hours and hours he'd study the scripture. And he has wonderful quotations about his time in the scripture and how it was just bread and life to him.

And he, of course, would also pray, just hours in prayer. And so, all this to say, he is going to go to America. In fact, he had already been once, comes back, mentions he's going to go back again, and someone says, instead of going and preaching to the savages in America, why don't you go and preach to some English savages?

And, you know, where are you talking about? The coal miners. Yeah. And so he goes to Kingswood, a mining area near Bristol, England. These coal miners had a horrible reputation. You won't believe in total depravity? Go check out these coal miners. Okay, apparently it's pretty bad, some of the things that are going on there.

No church in the area. And of course, since there's no church, there's no church for him to preach in. So he goes to the field there, and there's this high point. And he got a gathering, 200 coal miners, came out from the mines, listened to him, about 200 first day.

Promised he'd come back again the next day. And when he comes back, by the way, a lot of times when you go fill preaching, just so he'd be a little bit higher than everybody else so people could see him, he had this portable pulpit. And if you notice, you can fold the thing up.

And I'm amazed the thing didn't break on him, you know, looking at it. But anyway, that's off what he'd carry with him, that little pulpit. Get up there. He'd just go town preaching, you know. And by the way, starting off, he wasn't always so popular. For example, he went to Dublin, England, and he basically told the Catholics, you know, Catholicism is not going to save you.

And they didn't take too kindly to that, and so they started stoning him. In fact, one knocked him out of the pulpit, a big old gash on his head, and he had a scar for the rest of his life, you know. And Others throw hurt dead cats and all kinds of stuff at him.

But it wouldn't stop him. He'd just keep on going. All the ships to America, poor sailors, they could get away from it. I mean, he'd preach. If there's a person breathing, he'd preach to it. So anyway, he goes to the miners and he preached from the Beatitudes. And the miners come out from the pits.

And of course, the next day, it was actually over a thousand. Before it's over, 20,000 would come to listen to him from the mining region. You know, but started out just 200, swells up to 20,000. And he said, in his own description, he said he began to realize he's having impact when he looked out at their faces.

You know, in coal mines, you're just covered with soot, you know, the black coal dust. Of course, a lot of these poor guys die from what they call black lung. The dust would kill them. But white gutters down their cheeks as they were profusely weeping as he preached.

And having no righteousness of their own to renounce, they were glad to hear of a Jesus as a friend to publicans and came not to call the righteous but sinners to repentance. And so I've already covered that. So just, and just at the high point of this, you know, when he got 20,000, he calls John Wesley and says, John, take over.

I'm going to America. And so he does. Now, William Seward was one of the converts, and he was a very wealthy young man, made a fortune stock market in London. And, you know, Woodfill urged him to accept Christ, which he does, and also offered, you know, why don't you go with me and help me?

And I say, you know, remember the Richard ruler? Jesus told him, come follow me. And, you know, he went away sad because he didn't want to give up his wealth. Well, Seward was very happy, and he starts giving away his wealth by helping to fund Whitfield and particularly Whitfield's love of his life, which is the orphanage in Georgia.

Whitfield had previously gone to America. In fact, the Wesleys invited him to come over. So he heads over, and the Wesleys crossed each other on the Atlantic, I believe, because they'd given up and were coming back to England. And he went over, and he was just astonished at the numbers of orphans.

You know, Georgia was started as a convict colony. You know, the debtors from England couldn't pay their debts, so they sent them to Georgia. And it was a wild wilderness. And a whole bunch of the people that get there are their kids, and the parents die. And the kids are there without any relatives or anyone to take care of them.

So he's going to fund an orphanage there at Basadia. And by the way, it's still, well, it's no longer an orphanage, it's a boys' academy today, but still there in operation. America's oldest charity, still in operation, which is pretty astonishing. But anyway, Seward was his traveling companion, campaign manager, publicist, chief financial officer.

He is his wingman, his facilitator. And they get over there, they realize these kids need all sorts of things. So Seward goes back to England to purchase supplies, and he made all these purchases, but he never got around to actually paying because he also was preaching while he was there.

And he goes out and do some of this open field preaching, emulating Woodfield, and he is hit by a stone. Somebody didn't like what he was saying, so they threw a stone at him, hit him in the head, and he died a few days later. And so this left Woodfill in quite a mess because he'd purchased all this stuff, shipped it to America, and when he died, that put his will and test state, you know, and his relatives were not sent.

Sympathetic to his conversion are to Whitfill. So they get all his money that he was going to use to pay for this stuff. And guess who's left holding the bag, so to speak? You know, Woodfill. And that's why Woodfill, from that point on, was always in debt. And he's always in debt because he's trying to keep this orphanage going, keep their mouths with food and provide shelter and clothing for them.

And so he's always raising money for this orphanage. And while some thought that he was misappropriating money, every investigation showed he was honest as day is long. It kind of reminds me of Billy Graham on that matter. He had high integrity. And there's no scandals about Woodfill his entire career.

It's really amazing, other than some made-up stuff, which was quickly shot down. So he, you know, it wasn't some like these prosperity types that they go and build themselves a mansion. He actually put the money where it was supposed to go. So that was kind of a huge blow to them.

Of course, you can imagine Stewart was his Timothy, so to speak, for him to pass away. That was quite a hit for Whitfield. But he kept on going. And the orphanage, as I said, still going to this day. All right, so he had a huge Impact, as I've already mentioned, on both sides of the Atlantic.

And look where he went. He went to all 13 of the 13 colonies. He went to England. He went to Scotland. He went to Ireland. He went to Bermuda. He went to Gibraltar. He went to Wales. And he even made it over to the Netherlands. You know, just an incredible amount of travel.

Few men had the devotion to scripture, prayer, self-sacrifice, and drive to share the gospel like George Withill. In crossing the Atlantic, you know, on a sailing boat, you ever wondered? Two to four months, depending on weather. Two to four months. If you add it all up, since he came over, actually 13 trips to America, if you add it all over, three years of his life was on the Atlantic Ocean.

Three years of his life just crossing, you know, the amount of time it took up. And it was dangerous, by the way, to cross the Atlantic in those days. And so he comes to America, brings the greatest revival in American history, and that's on his 13th journey. And by that time, he's, you know, 55, about to turn 56, and his last sermon is going to occur in Newburyport, Massachusetts.

He gets there very weary, very tired. He'd ride horseback all over the place, too. In fact, He had the reputation of having taken the longest horseback ride in American history during the colonial times. And I think it was, it might have been from Charleston, but I think it was from Savannah to New York on horseback.

And he just, the guy was an energizer bunny, man. He just would not stop. And he gets there at Newberry Port. He's supposed to preach at Newbury Port First Presbyterian Church, which, by the way, didn't exist before the Great Awakening. It was a church that came about as a result of all these new converts.

And so he's going to preach the next morning there at Newberry Port. But when people in the community heard he was there, a huge crowd gathers outside the house, which was very typical anywhere he went. And he just couldn't help himself. He comes out and he preaches to them.

And that night, he couldn't breathe. He always had some problems with asthma, and he died during the night. He's buried right now today under the pulpit at Newberry Presbyterian Church. Now, the reasons he's buried there is he had asked, apparently on numerous occasions, when I die, I hope I die in the pulpit.

Didn't quite make it there. It was just right after he was in the pulpit. But he says, I want to be buried at the next church I'm supposed to preach at. Which is very convenient because he's at the parson. The church was just a walk away across the way.

And so they buried him there. And that's where he was. It said that that sermon, one of his closing words, was, Come, poor, lost, undone sinner, come just as you are to Christ. It is estimated during his ministry of 31 years, he preached face to face to 10 million people.

And this without modern technology. It is estimated that 80% of American colonists, and I had trouble believing this, but I found it in multiple sources. 80% of Americans apparently saw Whitfield face to face. More people saw Whitfield than ever saw George Washington, who lived longer and, of course, was President of the United States.

Whitfield got around much more than George Washington did. And he often would say, I would rather wear out than rust out. So he died 1770. Just remember, you're going to start having trouble in the American colonies. Just a few years later, we're going to have full-fledged rebellion breaking out in 1775.

And he died in 1770, age 55. And by then, he looked like an old man. Wesley, John Wesley was kind of bragging. He met him back in England the year prior to this for breakfast in London. And Wesley, writing in his diary or journal, whatever it was, he says, breakfast with George Whitfield today, he looks like an old man.

He says, well, I, on the other hand, you know, anything dear about me, my hair is a little grayer, and I have fewer teeth, but otherwise, I'm pretty much the same as always was. Okay. So, anyway, now, Brother Kevin, would you read that for me? Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes in me will also do the works that I do, and greater works than these will he do, because I am going to the Father.

Whatever you ask in my name, this I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If you ask me anything in my name, I will do it. Okay, you know, that passage has always intrigued me. How in the world can I do more than what Jesus did?

And, of course, in one sense, of course, that's ridiculous. I can't. But what do you mean by saying that? Well, I think Whitfield's a pretty good example in terms of numbers of people and all of that. It's just extraordinary, you know, the amount of traveling numbers of people that he was able to bring the gospel to.

And I think he really does epitomize that. Now, on his trip in America, 1704, he came to Philadelphia, which, by the way, was the largest city at the time, not New York, not Boston, it's Philadelphia. And that's with a population of only 13,000, right? Remember, population is much smaller in colonial America than what it is today.

Yet, in the first morning he preached there, 6,000 people showed up. Almost half the town. Then that evening, 8,000 showed up. Then 10,000 Sunday morning following. And then that Sunday evening, 25,000 people showed up. People come from all over. And we know it's 25,000 because Benjamin Franklin was there, and he is the one who estimated the crowd.

He did very, you see, I don't have time to go through how he computed it, but it's very accurate. And by the way, their relationship was amazing. Franklin was probably, well, pre, by his own admission, not a Christian, but he loved Woodfill, loved to hear him preach. And they became friends, and Woodfill is always trying to win.

And Frank, when he came to Philadelphia, he stayed with Franklin. Franklin had room set up just for Woodfield when he'd come to Philadelphia. And later on, he had a tabernacle built in Philadelphia for Woodfield. Now, on the other hand, I mean, just from a purely financial standpoint, it's smart for Franklin to do this.

He made a ton of money off of Whitfield. He printed a lot of his books and just sold them out like crazy. But he apparently sincerely really did respect Whitfield and said so on many occasions. Some of the highest praise Franklin ever lavished on anyone, he lavished it on Whitfield.

But anyway, he proved, you know, he very accurately showed, he said he could have preached to 30,000 that day. You know, he paced off how far the voice was carrying there and all that. So, in New York, he preached to 8,000 in open field, 15,000 the following Sunday morning, 20,000 that Sunday afternoon.

In Boston, he preached to the largest gathering in the history of the 13 colonies. Lawson says 30,000. Most sources say 23,000, but still the largest. And never before had anything like this happened before. And the aftermath, almost 300 new church congregations would form. And there'd be so many converts, you know, and that's why they had to have more churches.

But also, partly it happened because after Whitfield came through, there was also the After Effects, which wasn't always good, and yet in the long run, it was good because the established churches, most of the pastors. Established churches were not happy about this. They wanted things to be the way it had been, nice and dull and quiet and boring.

And these people getting fired up for Jesus, and they're just too emotional. You know, we got to shut this down. And so, a lot of these folks, when they realized their preachers, had that attitude, and then they came to a realization: these guys are my, this is my pastor, and he doesn't know Jesus.

And so, you have the old lights and the new lights for the Congregationalists. And the Presbyterians, they call the old sides and the new sides. And so, anyway, you have the splitting of churches and all sorts of things happening in the aftermath. Many other preachers try to emulate Woodfield, some with varying degrees of success.

And another thing, too, this is when a whole bunch of new colleges are founded, you know, as a result of the Great Awakening, as well. So, it's estimated 50,000 born-again. Of course, only the Lord knows the true number. That shows him there. There, you see, he's a younger man when he's preaching.

And there was no owl walking, you know, like you'd have in some of the later events, like Billy Graham and all that. But you just have Woodfield's message, and then people would make it known to their church leaders or whoever that they had had this. Experience with the Lord.

And so I have this passage here. Whitfield again and again and again would say, you must be born again. You must be born again. And I would say this whole passage here in John is probably one of his most favorite passages. So I asked Brother Kevin if he would read that for us.

Beginning in John 3:3, Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. Nicodemus saith unto him, How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter the second time into his mother's womb and be born?

Jesus answered, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. That which is born of flesh is flesh, and that which is born of spirit is spirit. Marvel not that I say unto thee, ye must be born again.

The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but thou canst not tell whence it came, and whither it goeth. So is it with everyone that is born of the Spirit. Nicodemus answered and said to him, How can these things be? Jesus answered and said unto him, Art thou a master of Israel and knowest not these things?

Verily, verily, I say unto thee, we speak that we do not know, and we testify. That we have not seen, and ye receive not our witness. If I had told you earthly things, and you believe them not, how shall you believe if I tell you of heavenly things?

And no man hath ascended up into heaven, but he that came down from heaven, even the Son of Man, which is in heaven. And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life.

For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through him might be saved. He that believeth on him is not condemned, but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.

And this is the condemnation that the light is coming to the world, and men love the darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. For everyone that doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved. But he that doeth truth cometh to the light, that his deeds may be made manifest that they are wrought in God.

He preached to all races, slave or free. In fact, he believed that slaves should be full members of the church. Now, his views on slavery is kind of almost contradictory. On one hand, he was not opposed to slavery, kind of like the Apostle Paul. He just accepted it as the law of the land.

And yet, at the same time, he was always getting after the slaveholders for mistreating their slaves. And when he would go and there's any large groups of slaves, he would go and preach to them. You know, is it Phyllis Wheatley, a famous slave poetry? She does one of her poems.

She dedicates it to Whitfield. But especially classes, he didn't care about class distinctions. Of course, you know, scripture, you know, that'd be his reason for that. The scriptures, you know, talks about, you know, you invite someone in and one's better dressed or anything. You're not supposed to show distinctions.

And he was totally against distinctions. And he would, you know, mention that God's no respecter of persons. Therefore, once again, you know, this whole thing about priests of the believer. And as I've already pointed out, this is going to have a profound effect on Americans in terms of this concept of having a king.

It's going to be broken down because he rejected that. And of course, there he is preaching. On his little pulpit. Other awakeners, which I wish I had time to talk about, but don't, would be like the tenants who were Presbyterians in the middle colonies, and then Samuel Davies, of course, in the southern colonies.

But, and these are the books I've already recommended. Let me get down. Yeah. And if you want to see the effect of Woodfield down today, the funny thing is, where he initially had the greatest impact was up in the New England area. One of the after effects of Woodfill is this split, which occurs within the Congregationalists and to a certain degree, the Presbyterian Church.

And what happens, these people who had gotten fired up, had a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, born-again experience, they would pull out of these established churches, which I've already previously covered what an established church was, and they would start new churches. And a lot of times, they would just very radically, let's have a church based upon scripture.

And guess what's going to be one of the first issues that starts coming to the fore? Baptism. And so all these congregationalists and these Presbyterians that were baptizing. Infants, they begin to notice something about the New Testament and all cases of baptism. And every single instance of a baptism, New Testament, what will you notice?

They're believers. They first come to faith in Christ, then they're baptized. And so the Great Awakening, the biggest, I guess you could say, boomerang, are the of all the denominations to benefit from the Great Awakening, to everyone's surprise, turns out to be the Baptists. And of course, we now know today the section of the country which is most Baptist, it's all that red area.

And this has come right down to the day, which is pretty astonishing to see. And so I think just taking a look at that, we all owe a debt to George Whitfield. And so, Brother Tom, would you please close us out, please, sir? Heavenly Father, we do come before you, thanking you for the people you have used through the centuries to communicate your word, truth, about Christ, the Christ-revealed scriptures, all the way back to.

The apostles and handed down the faith and continue to impress and teach and exhort people to listen, hear, obey, and come to Christ. Father, we thank you for the great privilege and knowledge that even today we can hear your voice calling us out of our world into discipleship, to learn from you, to take your yoke upon us.

Father, we thank you for the great truth that has been passed on through the millennia. And Father, we just ask now that we would take this and not just marvel at a great man, but marvel at the great God that you are and the great compassion and desire you have to be reconciled to your creation.

Father, we want that. We want to follow you. And we thank you for all of this in Christ's name. Amen.