Great Christian Biographies with John Piper: George Whitefield 3

Whitfield said I embraced the Calvinistic scheme not because Calvin but Jesus Christ has taught it to me

And then he wrote to John Wesley in 1740. I never read anything that Calvin wrote

I mean, can you bear witness in such a way? Well, what an effective way to Bear witness to the truth of Calvinism That was his way

He said that in 1740. I don't know if it's true when he died I never read anything that Calvin wrote

I Love it What Whitfield saw

When his new eyes were opened Were the five points of Calvinist.

He was simply blown Away, this is just a few months after his conversion and his main helper was

Matthew Henry Plus his Bible He was blown away by election and perseverance and their connection so EP This became for him the rock -solid

Foundation of his Life in ministry. Here's what he wrote.

Oh the excellency of the doctrine of election and of the

Saints final Perseverance to those who are truly sealed by the spirit of promise

I am persuaded till a man comes to believe and feel these important truths.

He cannot come out of himself But when convinced of these and assured of the application of them to his own heart

He then walks by faith indeed not in himself But in the Son of God who died and gave himself for him love not fear constrains him to obedience a year later

He wrote to John Wesley the doctrine of election and the final perseverance of those who are truly in Christ I am 10 ,000 times more convinced of if possible than when

I saw you last He loved assurance he had a deep

Love for his safe place in the mighty hands of God He said Surely I am safe Because put into his mighty arms

Though I may fall yet. I shall not utterly be cast away the spirit of the

Lord Jesus will hold and Uphold me

Now a Lot of people kind of quietly are Drawn to these things as they see them in the

Bible and don't say anything Because they haven't gone deep enough like Whitfield did for them to sound glorious Sweet precious good news

But not so Whitfield Whitfield was not quiet about these things.

They are strewn Throughout his preaching he said to Wesley I must preach the gospel of Christ and this

I cannot do without speaking of election in His sermon based on 1st

Corinthians chapter 1 verse 30 The sermon was called Christ the believers wisdom righteousness sanctification and redemption.

He exalts in the doctrine of election Now remember he's lifting up his voice to thousands of ordinary people

For my part I Cannot see how true humbleness of mind can be attained without a knowledge of the doctrine of election and Though I will not say that everyone who denies the election is a bad man

Yet I will say with that sweet singer. Mr. Trail. It is a very bad sign

Such a one Whoever he be I think cannot truly know himself

For if we deny election we must partly at least glory in ourselves

But our redemption is so ordered that no flesh should glory in the divine presence

And hence it is that the pride of man opposes this doctrine

Because according to this doctrine and no other he that glories must glory only in the

Lord But what shall I say? Election is a mystery that shines with such resplendent brightness that To make use of the words of one who has drunk deeply of electing love

Dazzles the weak eyes of some of God's children however Though they know it not

All the blessings they receive all the privileges they do or will enjoy through Jesus Christ flow from the everlasting love of God the

Father now I Attempted right there to sustain some level of pitch and I can't even do it with a microphone.

I Feel my head growing faint pushing like that I'm gonna faint if I keep doing that Whitfield reminds

Wesley In a letter 1741 though I hold particular election

Yet I offered Jesus freely to every individual soul.

Oh how he believed in the universal offer of the gospel an authentic offer held out to every soul

He did indeed Whitfield does not hide his understanding of definite atonement or Irresistible grace as he pleads with men to come to Christ He preached a sermon on John 10 27 to 28 called the

Good Shepherd He speaks clearly of the particular sense in which

Christ died for his own now This is an evangelistic sermon preached to thousands if you belong to Jesus Christ He is speaking of you for says he

I know my sheep. I Know them. What does he mean by that? Why he knows their number.

He knows their names. He knows everyone for who he died And if there were to be one missing for whom

Christ died God the Father would send him down again from heaven to fetch him

That's the preaching that drove the

Great Awakening and didn't shrink back from limited atonement or particular

Atonement that there is a unique sense in which Christ died for his bride a covenant bride winning getting

Since And then he mounts his passionate plea all of it based on irresistible sovereign grace.

Oh come Come see what it is to have eternal life.

Do not refuse it Haste sinner haste away make the great the Good Shepherd May he draw your souls

Oh If you never heard his voice before God grant that you may hear

Now come come come to the Lord Jesus Christ to him.

I leave you Amen, and that was the end of his sermon Did you hear it?

May he grant you to come you can do evangelism like that brothers

Irresistible grace does not get in the way of passionate calls to faith

Any more than at the tomb of Lazarus his deadness got in the way of Lazarus come forth

The word Created life There's no contradiction here

That's what the word is for So Among the doctrines of the

Reformation that filled the evangelistic sermons of Whitfield the most prominent was the doctrine of justification

By faith alone his signature sermon if there could be one judging by how many times it was referred to His signature sermon is called the

Lord our righteousness based on Jeremiah 23 6 the Lord our righteousness He never elevated Justification to the exclusion of sanctification or regeneration

He had this phrase Christ without and Christ within Christ without and Christ within as essential to the gospel

Here's what he said. We must not put asunder what God has joined together

We must keep the medium between the two extremes Not insist so much on the one hand upon Christ without as to exclude

Christ within as the evidence of our being his and as a preparation for future happiness

Nor on the other hand so depend on Inherent righteousness or holiness wrought in us as to exclude the righteousness of Jesus Christ without us

Oh How jealous he was to refer to this and The particularity this is what's so amazing.

You're preaching to masses of people ordinary people and you're dealing with the particularities of how justification works and We have rooms where people are quiet.

There's nobody taking off their clothes in the tree behind me Which happened to him several times people exposing themselves to try to distract the audience

Peeing on him from the trees That's that's not happening here and it generally doesn't happen in your church

Nobody barking on the edge Nobody running horses through the crowd and trampling old women down and yet we don't talk about the particularities of Doctrine active.

What's the excuse? You've got a captive audience and and here he is. I Fear he lamented in one sermon.

I fear they understand Justification in that low sense, which

I understood it a few years ago as implying no more than remission of sins

But it not only signifies remission of sins past But also the federal right to all good things to come as the obedience of Christ is imputed to believers

So his perseverance in that obedience is imputed to them also now that's

Complicated and he's bellowing it out

To thousands and They're weeping for joy He goes on Never did a more never did greater or more

Absurdities flow from the denying of any doctrine then will flow from the denying of the doctrine of Christ's imputed

Righteousness the world says because we preach faith. We deny good works

This is the usual objection against the doctrine of imputed righteousness but it is a slander and impudent slander

Well, that's the way he preached Doctrinally indeed it was a slander.

It was a slander on him Because George Whitefield Though he was an evangelist

Who mainly preached and some people to repentance and faith in Christ?

Such that they were experiencing Regeneration and owning Christ as their righteousness though.

That was his bread and butter. He devoted endless efforts to Collecting money to support orphans in Georgia where he had established the

Bethesda community and other Kinds of charities as well. And this was a huge reputation that he had

Franklin Benjamin Franklin said Whitfield's integrity Disinterestedness and Indefatigable zeal in prosecuting every good work.

I have never seen equaled. I Shall never see excelled

So if you say to me that preaching Justification by faith alone apart from works of the law grounded in the imputed

Righteousness of Christ to me undermines good works. I will call Benjamin Franklin to witness against you

Would that we could all Have a Franklin in our lives to call to witness

That we practice What we preach In other words his impassioned belief in the imputation of Christ's righteousness didn't hinder

The practical pursuit of justice and love it empowered it the connection between doctrine and practical duties of love

Was I think the secret of Whitfield's power in great measure all the masses in America knew this they knew this

They knew that he practiced what he preached they knew that he was a good man almost

I'm almost done Almost was he a good man It wasn't a perfect man

Justification by faith didn't make him a perfect man regeneration didn't make him a perfect man In fact

The effects of reading history and doing biography over the last years

Has pressed upon me the persistent discovery That contradictions and paradoxes of sin and righteousness abound everywhere in the holiest of people

I have no heroes who are flawless and The better I know them the worse they are.

What do you do with that? He was no exception So I want to rightly honor him and I think we will rightly honor him

If we're honest about his blindness in spite of his doctrinal faithfulness and goodness

The most glaring blindness of his life And there were others

Was his support of the American enslavement of blacks? Before it was legal to own slaves in Georgia And I don't know if you knew it went like this not legal legal not legal

Before it was legal to own slaves in Georgia Whitfield advocated for the legalization in Georgia for the sake of his orphanage and making it more affordable 1748 he wrote to the trustees of Bethesda, which he had founded and And said had a

Negro been allowed to had a Negro been allowed

I Should now have had a sufficiency to support a great many orphans

Without expending half about half the sum which had been laid out

Georgia never can or will be a flourishing province unless Negroes are allowed.

I am as willing as ever to do all I can for Georgia and the orphan house if either a limited use of Negroes is approved or some more indentured servants sent over If not,

I cannot promise to keep any large family or cultivate the plantation in any considerable manner close quote 1752 four years later

George became a royal colony and now it was legal and Whitfield joined the ranks of slave owners

That he had denounced in his earliest years Now that in itself is not unusual

Most of the slave owners were professing Christians, but in Whitfield's case things got more complex

He didn't fit the mold of a wealthy southern plantation owner Almost all of them

Resisted Evangelizing and educating the slaves they knew intuitively

Education would tend toward equality which would undermine the whole system and Evangelism would imply that slaves could become children of God which would mean that they were brothers and sisters and that would undermine the whole system which by the way is

Why the apparent New Testament tolerance of slavery is in fact a very powerful subversion of the institution now

Whitfield Ironically, this is everywhere in history everywhere in your life and mine for those who have better eyes to see than we do ironically

Whitfield did more to bring Christianity to the slave community in Georgia than anyone else in history

Whitfield wrote letters to newspapers Defending the evangelism of slaves and arguing that to deny them

This was to deny that they had souls which many of course were denying

Harry Stout observes rightly. In fact these letters

Whitfield wrote Represented the first Journalistic statement on the subject of slavery and as such they marked a precedent of awesome

Implications beyond anything Whitfield could have imagined in others as he defended evangelism and the fact that they are souls

Had an impact beyond anything He could imagine Whitfield said he was willing to face the whip of Southern planters if they disapproved of his preaching the new birth to slaves

He recounts one of his customary efforts Among the slaves in North Carolina on this second trip to America like this

I went as was my custom among the Negroes belonging to the house

One man was sick in bed and two of his children said their prayers after me very well

This more and more Convinces me that Negro children if early brought up in the nurture and admonition of the

Lord would make as great proficiency as any among white children I Do not despair if God spares my life,

I Do not spare of seeing a school of young Negro singing the praises of him who made them in a psalm

Thanksgiving to the Lord thou has put into my heart a good design to educate them

I doubt not but thou will enable me to bring it to good effect

Gary Nash wrote a whole study on the slave trade and slave business in Philadelphia And he says that the advent of black

Christianity in Philadelphia is Owing to Whitfield's first preaching tour there.

He estimates that perhaps 1 ,000 slaves Heard Whitfield's sermons in Philadelphia and what they heard was that they had souls

Just as surely as any white man had a soul Whitfield's work for the slaves in Philadelphia was so effective that Whitfield's most

I mean Philadelphia's most prominent dancing master Robert Bolton sold his old

Renounced his old vocation and and so gave his school over to the blacks for a school

Quote by summer's end over 50 black scholars meaning students had arrived at the school

All owing to Whitfield the slave owner from Georgia to North Carolina to Philadelphia Whitfield's sowed the seeds of equality through heartfelt evangelism and Advocacy for education and fundraising blind as he was to the contradiction of buying and selling slaves with that effort

Let me close one of his sermons and close this close one of his sermons

The way he did here then I conclude But I must not forget the poor

Negroes No, I must not Jesus Christ has died for them as well as for others

Nor do I mention you last because I despise your souls But because I would have

What I shall say make the deeper impression upon your hearts Know that you would seek the

Lord to be your righteousness Who knows but that he may be found of you

For in Jesus Christ, there is neither male nor female bond nor free

Even you may be the children of God If you believe in Jesus Jesus Christ is the same now as he was yesterday and Will wash your sins in his own blood go home then

Turn the word of the Lord turn the word of this text into a prayer and treat the

Lord to be your righteousness even so Come Lord Jesus come quickly in all our souls

Amen, Lord Jesus. Amen and Amen that kind of preaching

Infuriated slave owners one wonders if there wasn't rumbling around in Whitfield's own soul

Something's wrong because he really did perceive that such radical evangelism

Implied things That he didn't stand for he went public with his censures of slave owners and Published words like these

God has a quarrel with you for treating slaves as though they were brutes

If these slaves were to rise up in rebellion All good men must acknowledge the judgment would be just That's incendiary

It's just a hundred years too early We are strange people.

What are my blind spots? apparently

Whitfield Did not perceive the implications of what he was saying At least not fully

What was clear was that the slave population? loved

Whitfield I'm not making any excuses here. Okay. I know how horribly racist it is to say some of my best friends were slaves

They really liked the Massa I know that it's no excuse.

This is just reality. You need to hear a whole reality for all his implications imperfections and blindness and the contradictions in his life that were all

Undermining slavery as he evangelized and educated They loved him more than any other 18th century figure

Whitfield established the Christian faith in the slave community Whatever else he failed in They were thankful for that So The greatest preacher of the 18th century perhaps the greatest

Preacher in the history of the church was a contradictory figure He confessed that there was sin remaining in him when he died in Newburyport Where he's buried buried in this country

The slave community were the most prominent Grieving people at his funeral

Thousands of them he had treated them like people within the cultural

Expectations that they on their horizon could see he knew that he was a sinner

And he would have confessed If you do your biography John Piper Year after year after year what you will find is sinners.

That's all you will find except for one Jesus Christ So grant

Oh God that all of our study of history will reveal the goodness of a

Whitfield that can only be explained in terms of the transformation that he Experienced in the new birth and the sin of the

Whitfield which points away from himself to the grace on which he depended and The righteousness of another who alone was righteous that was counted as his

I Close with this quote from Whitfield. I Know no other reason

He said why Jesus has put me into the ministry then because I am the chief of sinners and therefore fittest to preach free grace

To a world lying in the wicked one father in heaven

We don't want to be naive about history or about the Saints or about ourselves

We are not here to lift up models Which save us by winning our imitation?

They don't They save us by pointing us to one who was perfect and Whose righteousness by faith is credited to our account

So even the sin of your servant has directed me to you

Just like his devotion and just like his Unbelievable natural capacities

So I thank you for George Whitfield. I Thank you for the grace that saved him

I thank you for the Christ without and the Christ within and I grieve that he was not a better man and I am very slow to point my finger

Because what will be said of my faults when the whole is known

So humble us under your mighty hand and Empower us to be faithful in this glorious gospel for which he lived and in which he died