Tag Archives: George Whitefield

George Whitefield Sermons, Walking With God.2

26 Thursday Nov 2015

Posted by in Exegeting the Heart, George Whitefield, Preaching

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Continued, from here

Whitefield then sets forth the outline for the remainder of the sermons
First, What the phrase “walked with God” implies.
Second, The means to “walk with God”.
Third, Encouragement to “walk with God.”

He breaks down the concept of walking with God into four parts: (1) The enmity with God is taken away; (2) positive reconciliation has replaced that enmity; (3) there is communion with God; (4) progress is being made in relationship with God.

Walking With God Means that the Enmity With God has Been Taken Away

he Enmity With God has Been Taken AwayThe doctrine of original sin, or total depravity, or enmity between God and human beings has not been an easily received doctrine. When Whitefield says, “Perhaps it may seem a hard doctrine to some”, he is not merely making a rhetorical flourish. There was an active conflict on this matter during his lifetime.* Even if there were not an active theological controversy, there would be the matter of the natural human recoiling at the proposition that I am an enemy of God. Therefore, to get a hearing Whitefield has some serious work to do with his sermon.

First, Whitefield both admits that it s a hard doctrine and at the same time states this fact is unavoidable:

And First, walking with God implies, that the prevailing power of the enmity of a person’s heart be taken away by the blessed Spirit of God. Perhaps it may seem a hard saying to some, but our own experience daily proves what the scriptures in many places assert, that the carnal mind, the mind of the unconverted natural man, nay, the mind of the regenerate, so far as any part of him remains unrenewed, is enmity, not only an enemy, but enmity itself, against God; so that it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can it be. Indeed, one may well wonder that any creature, especially that lovely creature man, made after his Maker’s own image, should ever have any enmity, much less a prevailing enmity, against that very God in whom he lives, and moves, and hath his being. But alas! so it is.

Whitefield’s argument is based upon the passage in Romans 8:5–7 (ESV):

5 For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit. 6 For to set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace. 7 For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God’s law; indeed, it cannot.

Throughout the sermon, Whitefield naturally quotes Scripture, even when he does not stop and say, “turn to Romans 8, I will begin reading in verse 5”. There are two ways to think about this. On one hand, a preacher’s language should naturally flow out in Scripture. On the other, it is a sad fact that even in the most dedicated churches the congregation has less biblical literacy than Whitefield could assume for his hearers. (I will admit that I don’t have a precise source for this fact.) Therefore, the stop and turn instruction has the effect of at least teaching congregants their way around the Bible.

Another issue here would be likelihood that most people in attendance would not have a Bible with them while they stood in a field and listened to Whitefield preach (I would be interested to discover when the habit of bringing a Bible with one to church and following along with the sermon began.)

Now Whitefield, having made his point, needs to bring the hearers to accept his point. Many sermons fail in effect because the preacher thinks that it is enough to merely state a proposition. It is essential that the necessary propositions be stated plainly, but that is not enough. In addition to the proposition being made clear, the proposition must be digestible. You will never move a hearer to act by providing information alone; the affections must be engaged of there will be no action.

Whitefield brings his hearers to understand his point by telling the story of Adam’s family. Whitefield was a genius of story telling. He uses the story to move from the abstract proposition to the tangible motions of life:

Our first parents contracted it when they fell from God by eating the forbidden fruit, and the bitter and malignant contagion of it hath descended to, and quite overspread, their whole posterity. This enmity discovered itself in Adam’s endeavoring to hide himself in the trees of the garden. When he heard the voice of the Lord God, instead of running with an open heart, saying Here I am; alas! he now wanted no communion with God; and still more discovered his lately contracted enmity, by the excuse he made to the Most High: ‘The woman (or, this woman) thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat’. By saying thus, he in effect lays all the fault upon God; as though he had said, If thou hadst not given me this woman, I had not sinned against thee, so thou mayest thank thyself for my transgression. In the same manner this enmity works in the hearts of Adam’s children. They now and again find something rising against God, and saying even unto God, What doest thou? ‘It scorns any meaner competitor (says the learned Dr. Owen, in his excellent treatise on indwelling sin) than God himself.’ Its command is like that of the Assyrians in respect to Ahab—shoot only at the king. And it strikes against every thing that has the appearance of real piety, as the Assyrians shot at Jehoshaphat in his royal clothes. But the opposition ceases when it finds that it is only an appearance, as the Assyrians left off shooting at Jehoshaphat, when they perceived it was not Ahab they were shooting at. This enmity discovered itself in accursed Cain; he hated and slew his brother Abel, because Abel loved, and was peculiarly favored by, his God. And this same enmity rules and prevails in every man that is naturally engendered of the offspring of Adam.

At this point, Whitefield turns the story to his hearers: Whitefield does not merely exegete the text, he begins to exegete the heart of those who can hear him:

Hence that a averseness to prayer and holy duties which we find in children, and very often in grown persons, who have notwithstanding been blessed with a religious education. And all that open sin and wickedness, which like a deluge has overflowed the world, are only so many streams running from this dreadful contagious fountain; I mean a enmity of man’s desperately wicked and deceitful heart. He that cannot set his seal to this, knows nothing yet, in a saving manner, of the Holy Scriptures, or of the power of God.

Having brought the point home, Whitefield returns to his main proposition which he restates and expounds. When I was a young lawyer, the very successful attorney who first trained explained that in a brief one must, Tell them what you going to tell them, Tell them, Tell them what you told them. Whitefield uses the same technique by returning and restating his original proposition:

And all that do know this, will readily acknowledge, that before a person can be said to walk with God, the prevailing power of this heart-enmity must be destroyed: for persons do not use to walk and keep company together, who entertain an irreconcilable enmity and hatred against one another. Observe me, I say, the prevailing power of this enmity must be taken away; for the in-being of it will never be totally removed, till we bow down our heads, and give up the ghost. The apostle Paul, no doubt, speaks of himself, and that, too, not when he was a Pharisee, but a real Christian; when he complains, ‘that when he would do good, evil was present with him’; not having dominion over him, but opposing and resisting his good intentions and actions, so that he could not do the things which he would, in that perfection which the new man desired. This is what he calls sin dwelling in him. ‘And this is that phronhma sarko”, which (to use the words of the ninth article of our church,) some do expound the wisdom, some sensuality, some the affectation, some the desire, of the flesh, which doth remain, yea, in them that are regenerated.’ But as for its prevailing power, it is destroyed in every soul that is truly born of God, and gradually more and more weakened as the believer grows in grace, and the Spirit of God gains a greater and greater ascendancy in the heart.

*An excellent discussion on the disputes surrounding the doctrine of original sin can be found in the introduction to the Yale Press edition of Edwards’ work “Original Sin” found here

George Whitefield Sermons, Walking With God.1

25 Wednesday Nov 2015

Posted by in Genesis, George Whitefield, Hebrews, Preaching

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This will be an analysis of the structure and content of Whitefield’s sermon “Walking With God” based upon Genesis 5:24, “And Enoch walked with God; and he was not; for God took him.”

The Introduction:

Whitefield begins the sermon by posing an issue, which the sermon will resolve:

Various are the pleas and arguments which men of corrupt minds frequently urge against yielding obedience to the just and holy commands of God.

He then restates and narrows the issue:

But, perhaps, one of the most common objections that they make is this, that our Lord’s commands are not practicable, because contrary to flesh and blood;

He then narrows the point further by turning it into an accusation in the mouth of those who refuse obedience:

and consequently, that he is ‘an hard master, reaping where he has not sown, and gathering where he has not strewed’. These we find were the sentiments entertained by that wicked and slothful servant mentioned in the 25th of St. Matthew; and are undoubtedly the same with many which are maintained in the present wicked and adulterous generation.

Notice that at the end of this section he puts the complaint into the mouth of some who are hearing him. Whitfield knows the objection presented and he allows the one who would reject the message Whitfield brings. Whitefield effectively says to such a one, I’m talking to you.

Whitefield does not something which would not perhaps be the first move of a preacher. Rather than try to argue with them on the basis of some shared value, Whitefield states God knows and has answered this objection in the Scripture:

The Holy Ghost foreseeing this, hath taken care to inspire holy men of old, to record the examples of many holy men and women; who, even under the Old Testament dispensation, were enabled cheerfully to take Christ’s yoke upon them, and counted his service perfect freedom.

Whitefield then begins to lay out the persons who prove his point:
The large catalogue of saints, confessors, and martyrs, drawn up in the 11th chapter to the Hebrews, abundantly evidences the truth of this observation. What a great cloud of witnesses have we there presented to our view? All eminent for their faith, but some shining with a greater degree of luster than do others. The proto-martyr Abel leads the van.

At this point, Whitefield slows to consider Enoch. First, he notes the extraordinary thing about Enoch.

And next to him we find Enoch mentioned, not only because he was next in order of time, but also on account of his exalted piety; he is spoken of in the words of the text in a very extraordinary manner. We have here a short but very full and glorious account, both of his behavior in this world, and the triumphant manner of his entry into the next. The former is contained in these words, ‘And Enoch walked with God’. The latter in these, ‘and he was not: for God took him’. He was not; that is, he was not found, he was not taken away in the common manner, he did not see death; for God had translated him. (Heb. 11:5.)

Next, Whitefield considers what little can be surmised about Enoch.

Who this Enoch was, does not appear so plainly. To me, he seems to have been a person of public character; I suppose, like Noah, a preacher of righteousness. And, if we may credit the apostle Jude, he was a flaming preacher. For he quotes one of his prophecies, wherein he saith, ‘Behold, the Lord cometh with ten thousands of his saints, to execute judgment upon all, and to convince all that are ungodly among them, of all their ungodly deeds which they have ungodly committed, and of all their hard speeches, which ungodly sinners have spoken against him’.

However, Whitfield does not allow his imagination to stray, and contents himself with God’s commendation of the man:

But whether a public or private person, he has a noble testimony given him in the lively oracles. The author of the epistle to the Hebrews saith, that before his translation he had this testimony, ‘that he pleased God’; and his being translated, was a proof of it beyond all doubt. And I would observe, that it was wonderful wisdom in God to translate Enoch and Elijah under the Old Testament dispensation, that hereafter, when it should be asserted that the Lord Jesus was carried into heaven, it might not seem a thing altogether incredible to the Jews; since they themselves confessed that two of their own prophets had been translated several hundred hears before.

Rather than running to some anecdote from 5,000 sermon illustrations, Whitfield has spent the opening section raising an issue directly and then looking to the Scripture for an example which illustrates and answers the issue raised in the first sentence. Too often, the introduction to the sermon is merely a time for bad story telling or jokes.

Having introduced his subject Whitfield then closes the introduction and sets out what he will develop at length:

But it is not my design to detain you any longer, by enlarging, or making observations, on Enoch’s short but comprehensive character: the thing I have in view being to give a discourse, as the Lord shall enable, upon a weighty and a very important subject; I mean, walking with God. ‘And Enoch walked with God.’ If so much as this can be truly said of you and me after our decease, we shall not have any reason to complain that we have lived in vain.

Whitefield has done a great deal in this introduction. First, he has raised a topic which the sermon will answer. Second, he has provided some general Bible knowledge, by using the Scripture as the basis for his illustration and discussion. Third, he has shown that walking with God is a laborious or painful thing. Fourth, he has set out the hope of the Gospel as illustrated by Enoch’s example. In the remainder of the sermon, Whitefield will set out how both a believer and one who is not yet a believer may walk with God.

What Made Whitefield’s Preaching Effective (J.C. Ryle)

23 Tuesday Sep 2014

Posted by in Church History, J.C. Ryle, Preaching

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In his book, Christian Leaders of the Last Century, J.C. Ryle details that which made Whitefield’s preaching so effect.

First,

Whitefield preached a singularly pure gospel. Few men, perhaps, ever gave their hearers so much wheat and so little chaff. He did not get up to talk about his party, his cause, his interest or his office. He was perpetually telling you about your sins, your heart, Jesus Christ, the Holy Ghost, the absolute need of repentance, faith, and holiness, in the way that the Bible presents these mighty subjects. ” Oh, the righteousness of Jesus Christ!” he would often say; ” I must be excused if I mention it in almost all my sermons.” Preaching of this kind is the preaching that God delights to honour. It must be pre-eminently a manifestation of truth.

Second, Whitefield’s preaching clear and understanding; as the Puritans would say, his preaching was “plain”. Plain is now a poor word to describe such preaching. “Plain” means to us “dull.” Yet, when one proposes a matter of life and death importance, “plain” is riveting. If a police office bursts into the room, gun drawn and you hear shots being fired, his simple and plain, “Get Down!” Will command your attention. If the policeman were to stop and talk about “root causes of crime” and such, he will merely frustrate you.

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When Whitefield slowed down

18 Thursday Sep 2014

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George Whitefield, 1758, on the effect of his continued ill-health:

my nightly rests are continually broken;…to my great mortification, through continual vomitings, want of rest and of appetite, I have been reduced for some time to the short allowance of only preaching once a day, except Sundays, when I generally preach thrice [Works, vol. 3, p. 227]

You are more fit to go to bed than to preach: The last hours of George Whitefield

05 Wednesday Feb 2014

Posted by in Church History, George Whitefield, Preaching

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The following is from the memoirs of John Gillies, who was with George Whitefield at the time of Whitefield’s death:

On Saturday, September 29, 1770, Mr. Whitefield rode from Portsmouth to Exeter, (fifteen miles,) in the morning, and preached there to a very great multitude, in the fields. It is remarkable, that before he went out to preach that day, (which proved to be his last sermon,) Mr. Clarkson, senior, observing him more uneasy than usual, said to him, ‘Sir, you are more fit to go to bed than to preach.’

To which Mr. Whitefield nnswered, ‘true sir;’ but turning aside, he clasped his hands together, and looking up, said, ‘Lord Jesus, I am weary in thy work, but not of thy work. If I have not yet finished my course, let me go and speak for thee once more in the fields, seal thy truth, and come home and die.’ His last sermon was from 2 Cor. xiii. 5. ‘Examine yourselves, whether ye be in the faith; prove your own selves: know ye not your own selves, how that Jesus Christ is in you, except ye be reprobates.’

He dined at Captain Gilmaus. After dinner, Whitefield and Mr. Parsons rode to Newburyport. I did not get there till two or three hours after them. I found at supper. I asked Whitefield, how he felt himself after his journey. He said, ‘he was tired, therefore he supped early, and would go to bed. He [ate] a very little supper, talked but little.

I then told him, I was afraid he took cold in preaching yesterday. He said,’ he believed he had;’ and then sat up in the bed, and prayed that God would be pleased to bless his preaching where he had been, and also bless his preaching that day, that more souls might be brought to Christ; and prayed for direction, whether he should winter at Boston, or hasten to the southward—prayed for a blessing on his Bethesda college, and his dear family there; for the Tabernacle and chapel congregations, and all connections on the other side of the water; and then laid himself down to sleep again. This was nigh three o’clock.

At a quarter past four he waked, and said,’my asthma, my asthma is coming on : I wish I had not given out word to preach at Haverhill, on Monday; I don’t think I shall be able; but I shall see what to-day will bring forth. If I am no better to-morrow, I will take two or three days’ ride!’

He then desired me to warm him a little gruel; and, in breaking the fire wood, I waked Mr. Parsons, who, thinking I knocked for him, rose and came in. He went to Whiteficld’s bed-side, and asked him how he felt himself. He answered, ‘I am almost suffocated. I can scarce breathe, my asthma quite chokes me.’

I was then not a little surprised, to hear how quick, and with what difficulty he drew his breath. He got out of bed, and went to the open window for air. This was exactly at five o’clock. I went to him, and for about the space of five minutes saw no danger, only that he had a great difficulty in breathing, as I had often seen before. Soon afterwards he turned himself to me, and said. ‘/ am dying-‘ I said, ‘I hope not, sir.’ He ran to the other window, panting for breath, but could get no relief. It was agreed that I should go for Dr. Sawyer; and on my coming back, I saw death on his face; and he again said, ‘I am dying.’

His eyes were fixed, his under lip drawing inward every time he drew breath; he went towards the window, and we offered him some warm wine, with lavender drops, which he refused. I persuaded him to sit down in the chair, and have his cloak on; he consented by a sign, but could not speak. I then offered him the glass of warm wine; he took half of it, but it seemed as if it would have stopped his breath entirely.

In a little time he brought up a considerable quantity of phlegm and wind. I then began to have some small hopes. Mr. Parsons said, he thought Whitefield breathed more freely than he did, and would recover. I said, ‘no sir, he is certainly dying.’

I was continually employed in taking the phlegm out of his mouth with a handkerchief, and bathing his temples with drops, rubbing his wrists, &c., to give him relief. if possible, but all in vain; his hands and feet were as cold as clay. When the doctor came in, and saw him in the chair leaning upon my breast, he felt his pulse, and said, ‘he is a dead man.’ Mr. Parsons said, ‘I do not believe it; you must do something, doctor!’ He said,’I cannot; he is now near his last breath.’ And indeed, so it was; for he fetched but one grasp, and stretched out his feet, and breathed no more. This was exactly at six o’clock. We continued rubbing his legs, hands, and feet with warm cloths, and bathed”

John Gillies “Memoirs of Rev. George Whitefield.”

Whitefield’s Sermons: Seed of the Woman.4

17 Wednesday Apr 2013

Posted by in Biblical Counseling, Genesis, George Whitefield, Preaching

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(The most recent previous comment on this sermon can be found here)

A careless preacher fails to think, What will this sound like to everyone?  If a text contains an encouragement, we may be tempted to think, I am encouraged; everyone will also be encouraged.  That is often not the case. If a sermon is the work of a shepherd, the shepherd must not only walk with the most, he must be careful to consider the stumbling and faltering.

In his sermon, Whitefield noted the great victory assured by God – the first Gospel, even in the midst of the

 I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel. Genesis 3:15 (ESV)

Here we have a promise of struggle – but it contains the hope of victory: the seed of the Serpent will strive with the Seed of the Woman – but the Serpent will be destroyed.  Whitefield notes the struggle, but then he comforts:

But let not this dismay us. For in all this the seed of the woman is more than conqueror and bruises the serpent’s head. Thus the Israelites, the more they were oppressed, the more they increased. Thus it was with the Apostles. Thus it was with their immediate followers, so that Tertullian compares the church in his time to a mowed field: the more frequently it is cut, the more it grows. 8 The blood of the martyrs was always the seed of the church. And I have often sat down with wonder and delight and admired how God has made the very schemes which his enemies contrived, in order to hinder, become the most effectual means to propagate his gospel.

Gatiss, Lee (2012-08-15). The Sermons of George Whitefield (Kindle Locations 998-1003). Good News Publishers. Kindle Edition.   So this is great good news – nothing will defeat the progress of God’s work.

He then notes that this struggle will not only exist between the believer and world, but it will exist within the person:

Further, this promise is also fulfilled, not only in the church in general but in every individual believer in particular.

Now, at the time he preached there were without question those who that morning struggled with sin. Some may have heard this promise who took instant solace. 

But there were others who when heard that Christ will defeat the Seed of the Serpent turned to their own sin and thought, This promise was not for me – I still sin in my life. In fact, such sin has overtaken me …again! Thus, the promise of victory and the song of encouragement will have the opposite effect upon the poor struggling Christian.

Whitefield, wisely turns to the weak and makes the address:

Many of you that have believed in Christ perhaps may find some particular corruption yet strong, so strong, that you are sometimes ready to cry out with David, ‘I shall fall one day by the hand of Saul’ [1   Samuel 27: 1]. But fear not, the promise in the text ensures the perseverance and victory of believers over sin, Satan, death, and hell. What if indwelling corruption does yet remain and the seed of the serpent bruise your heel, in vexing and disturbing your righteous souls? Fear not, though faint, yet pursue. You shall yet bruise the serpent’s head. Christ hath died for you and yet a little while and he will send death to destroy the very being of sin in you.

Whitefield could have completed the sermon without these five sentences. For most of the people, the sermon as it stood would have been more than sufficient. However, Whitefield thought carefully of those who stood to listen.

This is a point at which preaching and counseling overlap: The best preaching must perform the work of biblical counsel; just as the best counseling must be sermons in miniature.  There is a kind of preacher who thinks counseling beneath him.[1] While Whitefield’s primary ministry was to astoundingly large groups who came to hear; he did not considered himself too busy with preaching to fail and slow and gather up the broken hearted.

[1] There is a “joke” which goes with this: The struggling Christian asks, “What must I do about this sin?” The “wise” preacher answers, “What does the Bible say?” The struggling one answers, “To stop.” The preacher, “Then do it.” The preacher does not understand the Christian, nor does he understand the struggle. If he cannot rightly expound the Word in its strength and comfort to one person, we must wonder at the limitations he will face he thinks to expound it to many.

But Jesus

31 Monday Dec 2012

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Isaac is saved, but Jesus, the God of Isaac, dies; A ram is offered up in Isaac’s room, but Jesus has no substitute; Jesus must bleed, Jesus must die; God the Father provided this Lamb for himself from all eternity. He must be offered in time, or man must be damned for evermore. And now, where are your tears? Shall I say, refrain your voice from weeping? No; rather let me exhort you to look to him whom you have pierced, and mourn, as a woman mourneth for her first-born: for we have been the betrayers, we have been the murderers of this Lord of glory; and shall we not bewail those sins, which brought the blessed Jesus to the accursed tree? Having so much done, so much suffered for us, so much forgiven, shall we not love much! O! let us love Him with all our hearts, and minds, and strength, and glorify him in our souls and bodies, for they are his. Which leads me to a second inference I shall draw from the foregoing discourse

Abraham’s Offering Up His Son Isaac
George Whitefield

See How He Bows His Head

31 Monday Dec 2012

Posted by in Genesis, George Whitefield, Preaching

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See how he bows his head, and at length humanity gives up the ghost! Isaac is saved, but Jesus, the God of Isaac, dies; A ram is offered up in Isaac’s room, but Jesus has no substitute; Jesus must bleed, Jesus must die; God the Father provided this Lamb for himself from all eternity. He must be offered in time, or man must be damned for evermore. And now, where are your tears? Shall I say, refrain your voice from weeping? No; rather let me exhort you to look to him whom you have pierced, and mourn, as a woman mourneth for her first-born: for we have been the betrayers, we have been the murderers of this Lord of glory; and shall we not bewail those sins, which brought the blessed Jesus to the accursed tree? Having so much done, so much suffered for us, so much forgiven, shall we not love much! O! let us love Him with all our hearts, and minds, and strength, and glorify him in our souls and bodies, for they are his. Which leads me to a second inference I shall draw from the foregoing discourse.

Abraham’s Offering Up His Son Isaac
George Whitefield

Whitefield’s Sermons: Seed of the Woman.3

17 Wednesday Oct 2012

Posted by in Church History, George Whitefield, Preaching

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Finally, Whitefield provides an immediate application. His entire sermon has a larger application, but he does not fail to scatter the lesson from the individual scenes as he goes along:

Immediately the ill effects of it appear, she begins to soften the divine threatening. God had said, “the day thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die;” or, dying thou shalt die. But Eve says, “Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die.” We may be assured we are fallen into, and begin to fall by temptations, when we begin to think God will not be as good as his word, in respect to the execution of his threatenings denounced against sin.

Such an immediate application must be pithy and clear. Constructing such a sentence takes work. Consider this sentence for both form and content.

First, break the sentence down into constituent phrases:

We may be assured

we are fallen into,

and begin to fall by temptations,

when we begin to think

God will not be as good as his word,

in respect to the execution

of his threatenings denounced against sin.

Whitefield communicates a complicated proposition: but he uses the form of the sentence to track the form of the idea. Note that the sentence consists of two basic elements: The first element is the warning:

We may be assured

we are fallen into,

and begin to fall

by temptations,

The sentence identifies the time as which we have succumbed to temptation. The entire clause begins proposition

            We may be assured.

This is an interesting inversion of Christian language: Assurance is typically used of assurance of salvation. Here, Whitefield uses the word to note assurance of sin. Thus, the sentence opens by a jarring reversal of expectation.

Next, Whitefield gives the conditions of the assurance. He does this by repeating the phrase with a slightly different time difference coupled to a repetition of the verb “to fall”:

we are fallen into,

and begin to fall

The phrases are roughly similar in length and parallel in concept. The repetition of “falling” gives the sentence a “down, down” feel. The repetition helps to fix the concept in the mind of the hearer: Remember that in speaking, repetition, alliteration, parallelism all help the hearer to track the concept. The hearer does not know what is coming next and thus needs cues and confirmation to keep up with the argument.

The distinction between the phrases being made by addition of the prepositional phrase,

by temptations,

In this introductory clause, Whitefield uses the concepts of assurance, fall & temptation – which are basic constituents of the sermon dealing with the temptation and fall of humanity. Thus, he ties the application to overall structure of the sermon.

The second half of the sentence begins with a prepositional phrase which answers the question implicitly opened by the first half of the sentence: When does this occur? He marks this by placing the preposition at the beginning of the sentence and by repeating “We” which opens the sentence. The repetition of “We” marks this as a parallel construction:

when we begin to think

God will not be as good as his word,

in respect to the execution

of his threatenings denounced against sin.

The primary constituent of the thought is “God will not be as good as his word”.

However, Whitefield needs to qualify the concept: There is a particular element which Whitefield seeks to emphasize: we often discount God’s promise of punishment. The additional element could easily drag down the entire idea and execution is a mess of words and tangle of ideas.

Whitefield avoids the problem as follows: First, he opens the qualification by means of prepositional phrases. Second, he changes the register slightly: in the sentence up until this point uses short basic words; this portion of the sentence uses longer, more complicated words strung together. In order to say the words clearly, one must change cadence. The slower and more deliberate speaking places an emphasis on the final words. The change in register is marked by the “in respect to” which has the tone of argument, the law court or philosophical work.

Third, he uses repetition: there is a parallel structure which helps to hammer home the point. The change in register could lose the force of the sentence. The repetition allows the sentence to continue providing emotional force.

Fourth, the word choice supports the proposition: For example, “execution”. There are many words which could potentially signify God actually carrying out the promised punishment.  While “execution” means to accomplish an act, it also means to kill someone. For a people having seen public executions, the double meaning would not go past them.

Fifth, the entire sentence ends with “sin”. Thus, the dead weight falls squarely on the cause of death. 

Whitefield’s Sermons: Seed of the Woman.2

16 Tuesday Oct 2012

Posted by in Church History, George Whitefield, Preaching

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Whitefield does not stop at noting the primary plot points. Within each section of the story, he further notes the development of the action – again moving from plot point to plot point. In the case of this particular story, the plot points track the verses – this is not always the case. Genesis is a particularly spare story.

When Whitefield notes the point, he then elaborates briefly on the event so that it becomes understood and vivid for the hearer.  Following the development, Whitefield comments and then draws a final pointed application.

Here is an example. First, Whitefield identifies the plot point:

The first thing he [Satan] does is to persuade her, if possible to entertain hard thoughts of God; this is his general way of dealing with God’s children: “Yea, hath God said, ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden? What! Hath God planted a garden, and placed you in the midst of it, only to tease and perplex you? Hath he planted a garden, and yet forbid you making use of any of the fruits of it at all?”

Whitefield tells the auditor: Here is something you must observe about the text: Satan tries to transform Eve’s thinking.  He quotes the text and then develops the idea: Let me explain to how Satan’s question works:

It was impossible for him to ask a more ensnaring question, in order to gain his end: For Eve was here seemingly obliged to answer, and vindicate God’s goodness.

And therefore, — Verses 2 & 3. The woman said unto the serpent, “We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden: But of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die.”

Whitefield plants his feet deep into the text and explains further what is taking place:

The former part of the answer was good, “We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden, God has not forbid us eating of every tree of the garden. No; we may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden (and, it should seem, even of the tree of life, which was as a sacrament to man in the state of innocence) there is only one tree in the midst of the garden, of which God hath said, ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die.”

Here she begins to warp, and sin begins to conceive I her heart. Already she has contracted some of the serpent’s poison, by talking with him, which she ought not to have done at all. For she might easily suppose, that it could be no good being that could put such a question unto her, and insinuate such dishonorable thoughts of God. She should therefore have fled from him, and not stood to have parleyed with him at all.

Whitefield uses two separate means to develop the narrative point. First, expands on the facts; he repeats and expands Eve’s statement so that the underlying proposition is fully understood. He seeks to make the hearer see the event. Second, he provides commentary on what the event means: “Here she begins to warp …..”

Both aspects are useful to make the preaching effective. Show the event fully and plainly; then explain what it means. Most preaching I have heard falls into two traps. First, it seeks to expand on the narrative point by telling some other story. When preaching a narrative, there is usually little reason to go afield for a story. Leave out your high school days and stick to the text. Second, the commentary fails to understand the psychology of the characters in the story using the elements in the Bible. Often times an extraneous understanding of human behavior is imposed upon the text. If you cannot understand within the world view of the text why the characters are making various decisions; stay with the text until you do.