The story goes that a friend once asked the great evangelist, George Whitefield (1714-1770) why he preached so often on “Ye must be born again.”
Whitefield answered, “Because you must be born again.”
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I recently read through George Whitefield’s journal for the second time in my life, taking note of all the times he mentioned the need to be “born again,” based on the text in John 3. On his first trip to America heading for Georgia, he held teaching sessions with the soldiers on board the ship before it sailed. While expounding on one of the thirty-nine articles of the Church of England, I believe in the Holy Ghost, he digressed long enough to tell them about the new birth. He wrote on Sunday, January 15, 1738, “in treating of which, [the Article] I took occasion to show the nature and necessity of the new birth, a subject on which I delight to dwell” p. 109. (Emphasis mine)
Hanging out with friends, he said, “…had an excellent opportunity given me of discoursing for a considerable time on our fall in Adam, and the necessity of our new birth in Jesus Christ” p. 115.
Spending time with someone from a different church background, he said, “we both agreed in this, that unless a man be born again, he cannot enter into the Kingdom of God” p. 115.
Soldiers at Gibraltar “seemed well acquainted with the pangs of the new birth” p. 132.
He did have opposition to the subject he delighted in, even from professing Christians. Christmas Eve, 1738, after preaching he withstood several “who caviled against the doctrine of the new birth. But the passion wherewith they oppose is a demonstration that they themselves have not experienced it. Lord, make them partakers of it, for Thy dear Son’s sake” p. 194. Then, on January 8, 1739, with only an hour of sleep beforehand, he “confuted a virulent opposer of the doctrine of the New Birth, and Justification by Faith only” p. 197. It seems so strange that Jesus, the founder of Christianity, was the one who said “Ye must be born again.” Yet people within Christianity are uncomfortable with the teaching.
At Oxford, he said, “God assisted me to talk clearly on the New Birth, and Justification by Faith alone, with one who opposed it” p. 198.
On January 23, 1739, speaking to three Societies, “God enabled me to speak upon the doctrine of the New Birth, and however some might mock, yet others, I believe, were affected, especially three Quakers, who afterwards came and paid me a visit” p. 201.
Opposition did not stop Whitefield. If churches refused him their pulpits, he found his own in fields. A table, a wall, front steps of buildings, and mounds all served his purpose as he began to carrying his message to thousands upon thousands. He rejoiced and wrote in his journal on March 5, 1739: “Had the pleasure of having many whom God has touched by my ministry, come to me, enquiring about the new birth” pp. 226-227.
He also rejoiced when others carried the same message. To one proud man who opposed the message, “God sent a poor travelling woman, that came to sell straw toys, to instruct him in the nature of the second birth.” He later became a minister, p. 154. A fellow Church of England minister was denied local pulpits after embracing Whitefield’s message and became a field preacher, speaking of justification by faith and the new birth (p. 273).
One young man who radically embraced Whitefield’s message was put into a mental institution (Bedlam) but was later turned over to Whitefield to take to Georgia to help with the work there. (pp. 266-271) Although “letter-learned” teachers just wrote off the new birth teaching as “enthusiasm,” he stood in a field and spoke to about ten thousand. He wrote, “I insisted much upon the reasonableness of the doctrine of the new birth. God was pleased to impress it most deeply upon the hearers. Great numbers were in tears” p. 276. When the Bishop of Gloucester sent Whitefield a letter and a sermon by a Dr. Stebbing to rebuke him, Whitefield pointed out that the sermon “does not speak a word of original sin, or the dreadful consequences of our fall in Adam, upon which the doctrine of the new birth is entirely founded” pp 300-301.
But a different letter encouraged Whitefield. It came from a Quaker friend, dated July 21, 1739. He commented on Whitefield’s sermon on the new birth: “But when thou camest to the necessity, the nature, and the rewards of the new birth, thou wert carried beyond thyself. I, for one, am a monument of free grace and mercy” pp. 312-313.
Another letter told of an old man who happened to come upon some old books about to be discarded and read them carefully because they spoke of the same thing that Whitefield was preaching, new birth. He said it was all “a new language to me…. I had not read long, before the light broke” (p. 327).
Whitefield probably ruffled more feathers in preaching to the clergy than anything else he did. In the height of his popularity, he said, “I insisted much in my discourse upon the doctrine of the new birth, and also the necessity of a minister being converted, before he could preach Christ aright…. Many ministers were present. I did not spare them. Most of them thanked me for my plain dealing. One of them, however, was offended; and so would more of his stamp, if I were to continue longer in New England” p. 478.
He died in New England in 1770, after crossing the Atlantic thirteen times to deliver his message that helped to shape our American colonies that he loved. For more on George Whitefield, see John Piper’s audio version of his life, http://www.desiringgod.org/messages/i-will-not-be-a-velvet-mouthed-preacher.
Quotes above all came from George Whitefield’s Journals, Edited by Iain Murray. London: The Banner of Truth Trust, 1965.