Our world is prone to spiritual slumber. It always has been, and until that trumpet blast at Christ’s return, it sadly shall be. But God does not leave himself without witnesses. In each generation, God raises up loud voices to awaken souls. One of the loudest to ever quake a generation was that of the Reverend George Whitefield (1714–1770).
A Great Awakening, the new film by Sight and Sound Theatres, follows the friendship between one of America’s founding fathers, Benjamin Franklin, and “America’s spiritual founding father,” George Whitefield. Their friendship (and partnership) lasted over three decades and proved beneficial to both. Franklin used his printing press to print Whitefield’s whereabouts, sermons, and journals — bringing financial prosperity to Franklin and gospel spread through Whitefield. “Ours was a mere civil friendship, sincere on both sides, and lasted to his death,” Franklin wrote decades later (America’s Spiritual Founding Father, 112).
The story of the man whom God used to spark revival on two continents cannot be fully told in a running time of just over two hours. Whitefield was a force, a hurricane that swept through Britain and the colonies with Christian zeal, resistless spirituality, and renowned oratory. The facts are almost unbelievable. On many weeks, he preached nearly as much, if not more, than he slept. When not preaching, he rode on horseback miles upon miles to his next speaking engagement. He preached and taught one thousand times every year for thirty years, most of the time to thousands of people, all without microphones and notes, and often outside. John Piper notes in his excellent sermon, “Estimates are that eighty percent of the entire population of the American colonies (this is before TV or radio) heard Whitefield at least once.”
It must have been intimidating to take on the wig and clerical garb of such a man, but Jonathan Blair has my respect for his admirable performance of the mighty preacher. Well-matched with Blair’s performance is John Paul Sneed’s representation of Benjamin Franklin. The movie is set to the gorgeous and original hymn “Awaken Us Today,” which summarizes my purpose for this article, as it too pleads for revival to visit our shores again.
Voice of Revival
Before Whitefield spoke, he saw. At last, after nearly killing himself through asceticism and personal effort, he saw the glory of Christ through new birth. He saw the doctrines of grace all throughout the Scriptures. And he saw a sleeping world — and, what’s more, a sleeping church — unawake to the great realities of this life and the life to come.
We need voices like his to rouse us — voices not merely advocating for basic morality or natural law or political uprightness but crying out God’s demands, his grace in Christ, and the basics of true religion as found in Jesus. What kind of voices might God use today? Voices, if not as gifted and grand as Whitefield’s, at least sharing a few similarities.
1. Consecrated Voice
If Whitefield was anything, he was consecrated to God. He achieved wondrous feats only because he was wonderfully devoted to Christ. Of his ordination, he reports, “When the Bishop laid his hand upon me, I gave up to be a martyr for him, who hung upon the cross for me” (America’s Spiritual Founding Father, 37). Whitefield kept the spirit of this vow, serving his Lord and exposing himself to persecution (including several assassination attempts), near-death oceanic perils, and, likely, the shortening of his life from tireless preaching.
“He was eminently a man of one thing, and always about his Master’s business,” writes J.C. Ryle. “From Sunday mornings to Saturday nights, from 1 January to 31 December, excepting when laid aside by illness, he was almost incessantly preaching Christ and going about the world entreating men to repent and come to Christ and be saved” (Select Sermons of George Whitefield, 22). Often preaching forty to sixty hours a week, his life, as one biographer noted, was lived in giving one long sermon (George Whitefield, 2:522).
After truly converted while reading Henry Scougal’s The Life of God in the Soul of Man, he soon became a Samuel, dedicated to God — or a Paul Revere, galloping about the colonies declaring repentance and faith, for he knew Jesus was surely coming as a thief in the night. His sermons, his feats, his journals all betray a man utterly devoted to God and his work. He was not a civilian, nor should we say that he was simply a soldier; he was a general who ate, slept, and suffered in one cause, one mission.
The voices to shake our nation will not be given to speaking often of the newest shows and most recent sporting events, part-time preachers with their best energies invested elsewhere. They will not be enslaved to triviality but employed with a singular aim: the glory of God in the good of souls. Whitefield deplored a single hour wasted and lived under strict discipline that yielded labors beyond that of a legion of scrolling men.
2. Capable Voice
To what did Whitefield owe his undeniable power?
Christians answer, “God’s Spirit, God’s gospel, and God’s working in the hearers.” Answering of his own ministry, he said, “All the good which is done upon earth, God doeth himself” (George Whitefield, 1:33). Yet the Lord gave Whitefield a vocal ability that was increased by study and practice.
Natural men saw only the art of his speech. Skeptics, unable to deny his wondrous sway, groped for natural explanations: “He was a consummate performer, a Shakesperean preacher born for any stage he would have chosen.” David Garrick, the Denzel Washington of eighteenth-century England, confessed, envying Whitefield’s ability, “I’d give a hundred guineas to be able to say, ‘Oh!’ like Whitefield.”
Thus, Benjamin Franklin, though not believing Whitefield’s message and even resolving beforehand not to give a single coin to his cause (an American orphanage), by the end of a sermon emptied his pockets. Franklin reported of Whitefield that “every accent, every emphasis, every modulation of voice, was so perfectly well turned and well placed, that, without being interested in the subject, one could not help being pleased with the discourse; a pleasure of much the same with that received from an excellent piece of music” (George Whitefield, 1:116).
Whitefield’s was a trained voice. He grew up acting in his family’s large inn, and he studied eloquence. None could deny his speaking abilities. The strength of his voice alone beggars belief. Franklin, at first skeptical of the reports that Whitefield could be heard by 25,000 — without amplification — calculated that he could actually be heard by 30,000. One modern study found the number to could be up to 60,000. On one occasion, he was reported to be heard distinctly two miles down the Delaware River.
God’s work does not depend upon professional voices, but he often does use loud, strong, clear voices — possessed of conviction and radiating love for God — to usher in awakening. The voices that shake thousands are capable of being heard by thousands. So, learn to play your instrument. Christians are livers and speakers — we tell, we teach, we plead, we pray, and we live in accord with our message. God has ordained the good of the world and the eternal destiny of souls to rely in good measure on the voices of men. And sometimes, one or a few of those voices rise as thunderclouds to unleash lightning upon a nation.
3. Convicting Voice
Many seeker-sensitive churches assume that to be sensitive to the masses, one should not offend but rather present much like the world. The voices that shook Britain and America in the Great Awakening were no man-pleasing, ear-tickling voices. Whitefield did not round off the edges or sand down God’s testimony toward sin. Many sermons were seeker insensitive by today’s standards, yet God blessed the preaching.
Whitefield crossed the Atlantic thirteen times, each voyage taking about a month. Time fails to tell the miraculous story of his first trip, in which the Holy Spirit arrested a small fleet of three ships — vessels carrying drunken, worldly, carnal men — along with Whitefield, and brought them to seek the Lord. Under Whitefield’s influence, reformation broke out on sea too. Eventually, each morning they were called to attention as Whitefield preached loud enough for all three ships to hear. If we want awakening, let us overhear the kind of preaching God blessed for it:
Believe me, ye unhappy men of Belial (for such, alas! this sin has made you), it is not without the strongest reasons, as well as utmost concern for your precious and immortal souls, that I now conjure you, in the Apostle’s words, “Not to be drunk with wine, or any other liquor, wherein is excess.” . . .
But think you, O ye drunkards, that you shall ever be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light? Do you flatter yourselves, that you, who have made them often the subject of your drunken songs, shall be exalted to sing with them the Heavenly songs of Zion? No, as by drunkenness you have made your hearts cages of unclean birds, with impure and unclean spirits must you dwell. . . .
But turn ye, turn ye from your evil ways. Come to Jesus Christ, with the repenting prodigal saying, “Father, we have sinned! We beseech Thee, let not this sin of drunkenness have any longer dominion over us!” (George Whitefield, 1:159)
His preaching is full of sudden turns to address hearers directly. “Enthusiasm” stood as the accusation that many ministers feared, and thus a “boldly aggressive” Christianity was uncommon. But Whitefield broke down the fourth wall, flamed with holy emotion, and reasoned and pleaded with his hearers. Witnesses cannot recall many sermons where the people’s eyes, and Whitefield’s own, did not flood with tears.
The voices we need, like Whitefield’s, will call for new birth, for faith in the excellent Messiah, and for repentance from real sins. Such voices will discomfort, surprise, and alarm, awakening others from worldly stupor to eternity and its God.
4. Courageous Voice
Since Whitefield was uncompromising (bringing Christ’s challenging, as well as comforting, message), and because he stood tall in the public eye, he knew he was signing up to be misunderstood, maligned, and opposed.
As much as he was loved, he was disliked — disliked for his sermons, disliked for his field preaching, disliked for his emphasis on new birth, disliked for his partnership with those outside the Church of England, disliked for his doctrine, disliked for his preaching style, disliked for his confrontation of the clergy (many of whom refused him their pulpits). John Wesley, whom Whitefield considered his father in the faith, openly began to oppose his Calvinism with statements like, “You represent God as worse than the devil” (America’s Spiritual Founding Father, 80). The press published anti-Whitefield tracts, such as Joseph Trapp’s The Nature, Folly, Sin, and Danger of Being Righteous Over-Much, which made it through four editions.
J.C. Ryle (himself an Anglican bishop) states, “The plain truth is, that the Church of England of that day was not ready for a man like Whitefield. The Church was too much asleep to understand him, and was vexed at a man who would not keep still and let the devil alone” (George Whitefield, 1:216). Not everyone is happy to hear a trumpet next to his ear as he dreams, nor does Satan want his followers awake. Yet the voices God uses in revival are bold and not prone to bend before the opinions of detractors. “What did you go out into the wilderness to see?” Jesus asks the crowds of the mighty-mouthed John the Baptist. “A reed shaken by the wind?” (Matthew 11:7).
No.
Voices that shake a nation are unshaking voices, not those that blow away in opposition — whether that opposition come in the form of friendly fire, critics hurling dead cats and stones at you while preaching, or slanderous reports disseminating in the press. Whitefield proved to be such a voice, despite temptations to compromise. Arnold Dallimore surmises, “With a little compromise here and a little accommodation of his message there, with care not to stand too strongly for anything and not to offend anyone, he could have enjoyed almost unbroken good will and could have avoided entirely the life of conflict” (George Whitefield, 1:134). Yet he faithfully took what God whispered in Scripture and proclaimed it from the housetops, no matter the cost.
5. Quickening Voice
“You must be born again” — these five words of Christ to Nicodemus summarize the great burden of Whitefield. This was “the one great truth which had been the foundation of Whitefield’s ministry from the first,” writes Dallimore (George Whitefield, 1:345). “This was the staple preaching of Whitefield,” comments Charles Spurgeon, another great Whitefield admirer.
He was always great upon that which he called the great R — Regeneration. Whenever you heard him, the three Rs came out clearly — Ruin, Regeneration, and Redemption! Man ruined, wholly ruined, hopelessly, helplessly, eternally ruined! Man regenerated by the Spirit of God, and by the Spirit of God alone wholly made a new creature in Christ! Man redeemed by precious blood from all his sins, not by works of righteousness, not by deeds of the law, not by ceremonies, prayers, or resolutions, but by the precious blood of Christ! (“Natural or Spiritual!”)
What did Whitefield mean by new birth?
The new birth, to Whitefield, was a discernible, sometimes tortuous experience of renouncing sin and turning to God for forgiveness in Christ. People weren’t born again because they were baptized, or because they were Anglicans, or because they were British. They had to surrender their lives personally to Christ. If they didn’t, they remained subject to God’s wrath and in danger of going to hell. Preaching the new birth would become the center of Whitefield’s gospel ministry and the defining cause of his life. (America’s Spiritual Founding Father, 9)
This doctrine cast Whitefield as a villain in some eyes. Such preaching aroused questions about people’s salvation within the Anglican church, unified him with Christians outside of it, and placed salvation beyond the mere will of man. God the Spirit is sovereign to act upon any sinner he chooses, and in response to such teaching, men said with Nicodemus, “How can these things be?” (John 3:9). In awakenings of the past, this has been a consistent message by which God has humbled sinners to place their total dependence upon Christ to save them.
Awaken Us Today
As America celebrates its 250th anniversary, are we not a nation in need of revival? Policy-making may be useful for cleaning the outside of the cup, but the problem is the inside, the spiritual. We need godly politicians, but we need real preachers far more. We need a growing chorus of voices — consecrated, capable, convicting, courageous, and quickening — employed by the Spirit, humbling to the sinner, exalting to the Son, bringing true salvation and hope to a needy generation.
Let us cry out together,
From the oceans, through the valleys,
From the mainland to the shore,
Let your kingdom be awakened
In the hearts of men once more.
Call your children into freedom,
Captive souls to liberty.
Come awaken, Holy Spirit!
Come awaken us today!
Desiring God